


The Unforgettable Birthday Present

by rarepairqueen



Series: The Trans-Atlantic haunting [1]
Category: Ghost Adventures RPF
Genre: Disturbing Themes, Mentions of Rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 08:11:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 53,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarepairqueen/pseuds/rarepairqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luna's obsession with the paranormal leads her best friend to get her the ultimate 'sweet sixteen' present; a week with the Ghost Adventures Crew, where her life will change drastically as the abandoned buildings and the never-ending darkness await her arrival.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You did what?

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in 2011 - when I was 15 - and was uploaded here when copyright strikes filled up my inbox on another site.  
> Past me had very little experience in writing anything fictional whatsoever so what started out as a "it'll be interesting to see what happens" turned into a "oh god people like my writing" there was a lot of learning to do very quickly. I have thought about re-writing it but at the same time I'd rather people see how my writing style has changed over the years.  
> [So please forgive any OOC occurrences/mistakes/anything that makes you want to writhe with the cringe-factor; believe me when I say there's a reason I hardly ever read it...]  
> Also current me (or rather 17 year old me) had way too much sass when she was uploading the first 2 parts of the series so please excuse the chapter notes, it was a stressful time for her as she was in her first year of college (junior year of high school) and a lot of shit had to be done - including this! - so they can be seen as ungrateful/obnoxious...anyway!   
> Hope you enjoy! :)
> 
> *Disclaimer - whilst I don't say that I "regret" some author decisions I made, I do acknowledge that some details in some of this series can unsettle or offend readers so for that I apologise and hope that you continue to enjoy this series*

**Prologue**

I’ve always had an interest in the paranormal, seems like years since I first watched ‘Most Haunted’ one night. Pretty soon I had become slightly obsessed with the idea of ghosts and spirits running around my own home. Staying up until 3 am during the summer watching Ghost Adventures got my mind whirling with excitement – I would do almost anything to be part of the GAC. Little did I know that my friend was going to give me the ultimate ‘sweet 16’ present....

**Chapter One  
You did What?**

Waking up on my birthday I thought nothing much would change – yeah I’d be 16 but nothing much in my life would change. Boy was I wrong. I tugged on my bedroom door which was once again being stubborn and not opening.

“Son of a bitch even on my birthday!” I cursed under my breath. I was beginning to think of actually holding a hunger strike to get it replaced as it’s been the same for about 7 years but that wouldn’t have much of an affect as I only weigh six stone as it is.

Finally the door opened and – much to my annoyance – hit me in the head. I walked downstairs to the living room.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUNA!” came the familiar voice of my best friend Kate.

“Thank-you Keito.” I grin whilst rubbing my head

“You will love the present I got you! Open it open it!” she repeated excitedly. I started opening a small box.

“Is it some 30 Seconds to Mars tickets?!” I ask almost in hysterics

“Better than that!”

“What could be better than tha-” I start as I tear the last of the packaging away. A loan DVD sat in the box.

“Okay...what the hell...Keito?”

“Play it! I guarantee you’ll love it!” She urged me

Kate was known for her weirdness, she’d got me some weird but great gifts in the past so in my mind I was trying to work out what she’d done this time as I shoved the DVD into the player.

“ _My name is Zak Bagans. I’ve never believed in ghosts until I came face to face with one. So I set out on a quest to capture what I once saw onto video..With no big camera crews following us around, I am joined only by my fellow investigator Nick Groff and our equipment tech Aaron Goodwin. The three of us will travel to some of the most highly paranormal locations, where we will spend an entire night getting locked down from dusk until dawn... Raw...Extreme... These are our Ghost Adventures.”_

“okay so you got me a DVD of which season?” I say to Keito

“Keep watching Luna, honestly you’ll miss the cool part!” she snapped in return

I look back to the TV, the GAC were standing in a street outside some houses.

“Keito....why does that look like my street....”

“SHH”

“ _Today we’re in southern England to deliver a special birthday surprise to one of our fans.  All we know is that she’s 16 today, her best friend is going to be her favourite person ever soon, and that she is a huge fan of our show.”_ Zak said from the Tv.“ _So let’s meet her.!”_ He walked up to a door that looked very much like mine.

My doorbell rang just as he approached the door. “Keito pause this ‘til I get back..” I say as I go to the door.

“It doesn't matter.” She said running after me.

“What do you mean it doesn't matter?” I reply as she opens the door to reveal Zak, Nick and Aaron who was holding the camera.

“Surprise Luna!” Kate yelled

“Happy birthday Luna!” the GAC exclaimed

“Keito..what..what...oh my god thank-you!” I cried hugging her.

“Luna..stop hugging me...i don’t like physical contact...” she mumbled

“Luna, your friend Kate here _personally_ contacted us and asked if we could take you on a few lockdowns. However, the lockdowns are going to be in the US. So you’re gunna be skipping school for the week.” Zak said whilst looking into the camera every few seconds. “Sound good?”

“Oh my God.. Keito...what the hell am I going to get you for your birthday now?” I ask in disbelief.

“Don’t worry about it – I couldn’t score you 30 Seconds to Mars tickets so I tried these guys, which would you had preferred?” she replied smugly

“Now I remember why you’re my best friend.” I say whilst hugging her again.

“Luna! Seriously get off me!” Kate protested once again.

“This is gunna be awesome.” Nick said to the camera.

“Totally bro,” Aaron added.

I invited them inside and told Kate to serve tea – preferably without burning my house down – whilst I went upstairs and packed for my trip.

I knew all about the stuff they experience on lockdowns so whilst packing I saw my pocket sized bible on the shelf. Being a Christian I kept it around and I suppose if I end up with some demonic spirits it might save me. I packed it into my suitcase along with a variety of clothing for any weather, my own camera, my netbook and my mobile charger as well as all the essentials. I carried my suitcase downstairs before joining the crew in my living room.

“So where exactly are we getting locked into?” I ask

 “We’re going to the DuVade mansion in Florida; it’s going to be awesome.” Aaron said, they had since put their cameras on tripods recording our conversation.

“Okay….and this is supposedly haunted because….?” I ask

“Well they’ve seen shadow people, orbs, heard footsteps, conversations….the works.” Nick replied

“But the important thing is…” Zak cut in “that it’s now a hotel but before that it was the scene of a massacre.”

Kate burst out laughing, which is quite normal for her but the crew were taken back with surprise.

“Keito…it’s not that funny.” I say to her

“I’m sorry…but it’s - ” she said before bursting into laughter again.

“Ignore her, it’ll pass. So a massacre eh?” I say to GAC

Zak still looked a little surprised at Kate’s outburst but continued nonetheless. “We don’t know the full details but from what we’ve heard an entire family was murdered one night. There might be more, might be less, we won’t know until we get there.”

“Which means we should get going if we’re going to catch our flight to Florida, you got everything Luna?” Aaron asked.

“Sure do Aaron.” I reply

“Let’s go then, Zak you’re driving.” Nick laughs before heading to the door. I say my last goodbye to Kate and then get in the back seat of the car with Nick whilst Aaron puts my suitcase in the boot. We drove off towards Bristol airport.

**~Two hours later – on the plane ~**

We ended up sat together in a four seat row, me sat in between Zak and Nick with Aaron sat on Nick’s other side. During the flight the crew were asking me about my life, interests and most importantly why I wanted to go on a lockdown so badly.

“Well I started being interested in the paranormal when I was around ten or eleven years old, since then I’ve watched things like Most Haunted and Ghost Hunters until I stumbled across Ghost Adventures. I prefer your show because...well it’s more entertaining...since then I’ve just wanted to go on a lockdown with you guys ” I explain

“Cool, so have you had any experiences?” Zak asks me

“I haven’t seen anything, but I’ve heard one or two weird things. You see, my cat died two years ago and his ashes are now sat in my room. When he was alive he would sleep on my bed and when he jumped off it would make a load thud on the floor. A few days after he died I kept hearing the thud I would hear when he landed on the floor. For a while I kept looking back expecting to see him – when nothing was there it reminded me he was gone. That’s it really nothing big.”

“That could’ve been your cat’s ghost, it’s possible considering you have his ashes in your room and I’m guessing you were quite close to him.” Nick speculated

“Mmhmm.” I reply

“I heard from Kate that you’re a Christian, how does this fit in with your belief of ghosts?” Zak asked me

“Well I feel that ghosts are souls of people who either haven’t been laid to rest properly or have a task they feel they must do before they can pass on to the afterlife. I also feel that if they’ve had a traumatizing experience close to death that they can’t escape they might stick around looking for help. After all Christians believe in the Holy Spirit – which is a ghost.”

They all nod as I explain my reasoning. “Do you get scared easily?” Aaron asked me after I finished

“I don’t really know – sudden bangs can scare anyone, I don’t know about being touched by things I can’t see – I guess we’ll find out.”

“Well we’ll be landing soon so get ready and when we land we’ll find the hotel.” Zak said

**~ At the hotel – early evening ~**

“So you’re telling me there are only two rooms?” Zak asks the receptionist again

“Yes Mr. Bagans, only two left.” The receptionist said repeating herself for the third time

Zak turns to Nick, Aaron and I. “Well what do you guys think?”

“Well someone’s got to stay with Luna then.” Nick stated

“Yeah I know Nick but...wait one second.” Zak said before turning back to the receptionist. “Are these rooms interconnected?”

“Yes they are Sir.” She replied

“That isn’t much of a problem then is it? I mean there’ll be two separate beds so it’s not a big deal Zak.” Aaron reasoned

“Fine, but who’ll have the bed in Luna’s room?” Zak snapped back

“I’ll have it – if that’s all right with her.” Nick replied.

They look to me expecting me to give them a lengthy response; “Yeah sure.” I reply

Now that that was settled we checked in and headed to our rooms. The first thing Nick did when we got in was open the interconnecting door to Zak and Aaron’s room. I was at a loss as of what to do – I knew we were staying here for two nights so unpacking everything would be a bit weird but I didn’t want to just sit there and watch Nick unpack. Thankfully he noticed my puzzled look and decided to show me how to operate one of the cameras we’d be using.

Just as he finished explaining everything Aaron walked in carrying his shoulder camera that was recording for the program.

“So Luna how’s bunking with Nick?” he laughed after asking me

“Dude seriously.” Nick laughed back

“Aaron we’ve been here like ten minutes and you’re already suggesting things.” I chime in

“Of course! So what have you two been up to then?” he replied

“I just finished showing her how to operate the handheld camera she’ll be using on our lockdowns.” Nick said

“And?” Aaron asked

“and what? We literally finished when you walked in.”

Zak walked in after hearing the exchange, “come one guys, I’m hungry let’s grab a bite to eat then sit and read the location info.”

“okay boss.” Nick and Aaron replied and they leave to get the truck. Before Zak and I leave he says to me; “Aaron can be a bit...um...”

“Jumping to conclusions? It’s alright, I’ve lived with hormonal teens every day of my life who always do it. I know he doesn’t mean harm.” I reply before he could finish

“Yeah, okay but when we get locked down he gets very jumpy and freaked out – as you’ve seen I suppose, but it’s different being back in England and seeing it through a TV screen than being there in the dark with him. Just a warning.”

“Okay, thanks I guess we should catch up with those two.” I reply

**~ After eating – in Zak’s room ~**

“So, the DuVade mansion in Palm Beach Florida; in 1879 the Wilson family were murdered; three daughters, two sons, and their parents Lily and Malcolm by an unknown person. There was some talk of one of the sons getting a girl pregnant and her father was enraged so was plotting something against the son. None of that was confirmed.” Zak read from the file

“So what activity actually happens there?” Nick asked

“Shadow figures are seen in the hallways, voices heard, screams to be more precise, also a few feelings of the ‘heebie jeebies’ – as Aaron would put it...” Zak continued reading “So a lot of standard activity.”

“Wow, so this is tomorrow night I’m guessing we’re doing this..” I say

“Yeah, tomorrow morning Aaron and I will go and interview some people whilst Nick, you and Luna go to the library and dig up some more history. We’ll meet up at lunch before heading to the mansion.”

“Got it chief.” We replied, I actually felt like part of the team.

“Right now it’s half nine so don’t stay up too late guys you’ll need the energy you get tonight to power you through the lockdown.” Zak concluded before snapping the file shut.

After a brief discussion about arrangements for tomorrow lunch time I went back into my room and got ready for bed – a strappy black top and grey jogging bottoms – Nick came in just as I was walking out of the bathroom.

“Oh Luna, listen will you be wanting to take a shower in the morning?” he asked a little startled

“Uh, no I won’t I took one the day before yesterday – so I’ll have one when we get back from the lockdown.” I reply

“Okay – I’ll be having one though so if you wake up and I’m not here it’s because I’m in the shower, so don’t freak out.”

“I don’t think that’ll happen.” I reply whilst climbing into bed. He went into Zak’s room and discussed something I couldn’t make out, then came back in and went to bed himself.

**~*~**

 It hadn’t been long when I heard him wake up and climb out of bed. I stared at the clock on the wall ’11:30’ what the hell was he doing? I was about to go back to sleep when I heard him pacing and whispering something, he then went into Zak’s room I shortly heard yelling coming from Zak and Aaron followed by hushed tones. Seriously what the hell?

Zak came in and started pointing the camera around the room, Aaron following him with the shoulder camera. Nick came to my side and shook me awake further.

“Luna…wake up…” he whispered

“Nick? What’s going on?” I asked him

“I’m hearing voices so Zak and Aaron are investigating. Are you okay?”

“Yeah…I heard you get up and I was wondering what you were doing. Why was Zak yelling?”

“Uh…it’s what the voice said that made him yell…” Nick replied hesitantly

“Right you perverted coward! Show yourself!” Zak barked into the darkness

“uh…what the f*ck is going on?” I snap

“Nick take her into my room and tell her what’s going on, I’m not having her here with _it_.” Zak replied

Nick led me into Zak and Aaron’s room and sat me down on the sofa, I hadn’t known them that long but I could tell that something to do with that voice worried them.

“Luna, when you were…er…changing…did you hear anything weird?” He stuttered as he sat next to me.

“No…why?” I reply quietly

“Well as I was led in bed drifting into sleep I heard this voice…it said that….that…you had a nice…er..” he gestured to my chest.

“Oh…that’s quite…weird…um I’m sorry that made you feel uncomfortable Nick.” I could feel my cheeks turning pink

“hehe, it’s okay...um…but Zak’s now on edge about it…yeah…” he chuckled slightly.

 “Typical Zak…” I comment I could feel my eyes drooping; a sudden tiredness came over me. Jet-lag. I fell against Nick’s shoulder quickly feeling drowsy , instead of freaking out like I thought he would, he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and found one of Aaron’s jackets to put around me. The last thing I remember was him telling me Zak was getting more and more frustrated and me laughing slightly at it. Then I fell asleep.


	2. DuVade mansion (part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the chapter titles only get weirder but I'm not feeling creative enough to rename them.

**Chapter Two  
DuVade Mansion (part 1)**

The next morning I woke up in my bed, I was a bit disoriented at first forgetting what had happened but after a few seconds I remembered falling asleep on Nick’s shoulder. My cheeks burned red at that thought. Nick came out of the bathroom and was obviously surprised to see me up.

“Bloody hell you Englishmen wake up early.” he said

“Actually I’m part Welsh but nevermind, what time is it?” I mumble

“7:15. we’re not leaving ‘til nine so you can go back to sleep.”  He replied whilst checking all the cameras strewn about the room. I’m surprised I hadn’t noticed them until now.

“Why are there a million cameras in the room?” I ask

“Because Zak was so paranoid he ordered them to be put up to record any strangeness that might’ve happened. Also digital tape recorders were set up – I would’ve told you but you were asleep by the time the rest of us went to bed.” He explained with a sly grin on his face

“Oh…so did we get anything?”

“I’m about to check. Do you wanna help or would you rather go back to sleep?”

“I’ll help you I guess, I’ll need to know how you analyse stuff for later on.” I reply making my way over to his bed where he was sat with the laptop on his lap.

We spent 45 minutes studying the video and audio captured – I discovered I talk in my sleep still but other than that nothing else was caught.

“Hmm so I still talk in my sleep….” I mumble

“You knew? I didn’t say anything incase you didn’t. You said some weird things whilst led against me.” He asked surprised

“Wha-what did I say?” I asked slightly worried

“Something about a guy called Will? Brother Will? I don’t know..”

“Oh, a friend of mine – called Will, left to work in China six months back and he was like a brother to me. That was probably who I was talking about.” I reply relieved

I go into the bathroom to get dressed while Nick reviews the last of the audio captured. When I came back out he looked as white as a sheet.

“Nick? Is there something wrong?” I ask

“Go and get Zak.” He replied solemnly.

I walk through the connecting door into Zak’s room. Aaron was still asleep but Zak was doing something at his laptop.

“Zak? Nick needs to talk to you – it doesn’t sound good.” I pipe up. Zak turned around instantly and rushed to Nick’s side. After hearing whatever Nick found he grabbed me gently by the wrist and led me into the corridor and spoke to me in a hushed tone;

“Luna, you talk in your sleep right?”

“yes…” I whisper in reply

“Well as well as your sleep-talking we caught another voice responding to what you were saying…do you remember what you said?” his eyes growing more and more fearful.

“..no…” I whimper

“You said that someone was your most precious treasure. We couldn’t hear who you were referring to, but another voice replied…and…I don’t want to scare you – but it said that they will be ‘next’. Do you know what it meant?”

“…I-I don’t think so…I’m not even sure who I was referring to…” I whisper, I started shaking fighting the tears that had no meaning in my mind.

“It’s okay, but I think you should go with Aaron to get some breakfast – when he gets up, Nick and I will talk about this and let you know what our plan of action is.” Zak said whilst hugging me

“Okay..” I reply. When Aaron got up we went to the hotel restaurant and ate some breakfast. Nick and Zak stayed in the room and spoke about the voices;

“What do you think?” Zak asked his long term friend

“I don’t know – we’ve not had anything like this happen in a hotel room before…” Nick replied

“Did the perverted one sound mocking? Or malicious? Or just plain perverted?”

“Uh…just plain perverted, it sounded almost like it was trying to tempt me to go and…well…touch her.” Nick shifted in his seat.

“The other one sounded evil, no doubt about that. So we have a perverted voice and an evil voice…same entity?” Zak speculated

“Could be a demonic spirit…” Nick said quietly

“IF it is…then we might have a problem…wait isn’t she a Christian?”

“Yeah…but – oh maybe she brought something to protect her.”

“Maybe – come on. Let’s check the room but not go rummaging through her bag.” Zak declared as he rose and went into Nick’s room.

They found the bible on the bed. “So this is one thing she brought…” Zak said

“So she thought enough to bring something.” Nick commented. Me and Aaron walked back into the room laughing and chatting.

Zak and Nick could do nothing but look at one another with the ‘Typical Aaron’ look. The day seemed like it would be looking up after its weird start. Or at least that is what I thought. I felt a burning sensation on my stomach, it had been there since I woke up but I hadn’t said anything for I thought it was nothing. I mentioned it to Zak after Aaron and I recovered from our laughter.

 “Lift up your shirt.” Zak sternly said

I lifted it up just below my chest, no point in making Nick any more uncomfortable than he already was. There was a long scratch across my stomach that had mysteriously appeared to my surprise.

“What the f*ck dude…that’s creepy…” Nick mumbled “How long have you felt the burning feeling?” he asked

“Uh, since I woke up actually, I didn’t wanna say anything in case it was nothing.” I reply

“Right…Aaron go and get the camera we need to document this.” Zak barked

“O-okay.” The big man stuttered. I led on the bed as I started to feel dizzy from all this sudden activity.

“This is not good. What the hell is going on?” Nick said rubbing his head

Aaron returns with the camera and Zak explains the entire situation to the now recording camera. He didn’t notice that I was lying perfectly still muttering under my breath.

 “Dude, I don’t feel good…” Aaron said. A heavy presence came over the room. I sat upright and pulled my top down. I looked to Nick who looked absolutely frozen. Then to Aaron who was being held up by the wall, and finally to Zak who looked normal – typical.

“Is it me or did it just get freezing in here?”  Nick asked rubbing his arms.

“It did get cold in here. Hold still though.” I reply “Nobody move.” My head was pounding from some unknown force, but I knew I had to do _something_.

I stood up from the bed and grabbed my bible and held it to my chest. “You’re not welcome here.” I said making a symbol of the cross in the air.  “You’re nothing but an evil spirit and in the name and glory of the Lord Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God, I banish you from this room to never return!” I shout at the heavy air. Zak looked shocked and mouthed at the camera he was still holding – “ _she’s practically performing an exorcism!_ ” Nick and Aaron seemed to recover from their states of sickness and the heaviness seemed to disappear.

“Well let’s hope that worked and that it won’t come back.” I sigh.

“That was just…wow…dude you just got rid of the spirit! What the hell!” Aaron cried

“That was something else entirely… I still feel a little dizzy though.” Nick said

“I think we can all agree that this is going to be one epic lockdown just with these events alone.” Zak said half to the camera half to us. “Now let’s continue preparing for his lockdown guys.”

**~ In the Library with Nick ~**

Nick and I ended up in the library whilst Zak and Aaron went to interview witnesses as we all agreed would happen. Yet somehow there was a deadly silence in the library, more so between me and Nick, it was almost unbearable.

“Nick, are you okay? You seem a little...off...” I ask him quietly

“I’m fine, just tired. A little freaked out as well about what happened to be honest.” He replied

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not exactly what happens every day.” I say trying to comfort him

“I’ve been possessed, attacked by ghosts, threatened by spirits, but even all of that didn’t prepare me for what that voice said. It’s just...I don’t even know how to describe it.”  He replied.

“But if you let yourself be consumed with thoughts about it – that means the spirit won. Now don’t tell me you want to lose to a voice without a body.” I whine

He thought for a moment before I saw a faint smile start to emerge on his face. “Damn Luna, I don’t know how you are able to be so straight forward about things.”

“I always have been seen as a leader. Anyway – didn’t Zak tell us to do some research or something?” I ask

“Yeah, the location and its history; he called ahead and the librarian collected various books and documents for us.”

We walked up to the front desk and got given a small pile of books and a separate pile of old papers. I followed Nick to a desk in the middle of the bookcase maze and we divide the work evenly and got swallowed up by the past.

 

**~ Meeting up in a small café ~**

“So what did you find guys?” Aaron asked before devouring a plate of food.

“Well we knew there had been murders right?” Nick starts

“Turns out the entire house is built on an old graveyard.” I continue

“And, during the time of the Wilson family living there; three of their dogs died under suspicious circumstances.” Nick finishes getting more and more excited.

“But that was just the beginning; one of the three daughters was rumoured to be practising witchcraft and was hanged for it.” I start again, I could see Zak’s eyes widen at this history we were telling him.

“Then the eldest son got a rich businessman’s daughter pregnant. The guy was furious and was noted to be yelling death threats at Malcolm Wilson, saying the family should all go to hell like the daughter hanged the previous year.” Nick continues

“Malcolm and the sons went away on business and left the ladies of the house at home. This was when the murders took place.” I urge the story onwards. Aaron had stopped shovelling food down his throat and was staring at us as Nick and I relayed the story to them

“Apparently two unknown men entered the house one night, took the mother away from her daughters and proceeded to beat her until she died. They then raped both girls before beating them as well.”

“When the father and sons returned later that night the killers beat them as well.” I finished

Zak and Aaron just stared at us in disbelief. “D-did anything else happen?” Aaron stuttered

“A fire in 1905 killed several maids, when it was investigated to find the cause the officials reached the previously sealed basement – where the Wilson sisters were allegedly raped – they found blood spatter on the wall and it was documented that any females entering the space would get a feeling of overwhelming sadness and any males would be attacked and screamed at.” Nick recited

“Well…this is going to be good….Luna looks like you might be a helpful resource in this lockdown, and of course the bait- I mean Aaron will be taking a trip to that basement.” Zak said slapping Aaron’s back playfully.

“Whatever dude…” Aaron replied and then proceeded to eat whatever was left on his plate.

**~ Outside the DuVade mansion ~**

“ _My name is Zak Bagans. I’ve never believed in ghosts until I came face to face with one. So I set out on a quest to capture what I once saw onto video. With no big camera crews following us around, I am joined only by my fellow investigator Nick Groff and our equipment tech Aaron Goodwin. The three of us will travel to some of the most highly paranormal locations, where we will spend an entire night getting locked down from dusk until dawn... Raw...Extreme... These are our Ghost Adventures.”_

“So right now I’m standing on the front lawn of the DuVade mansion in Palm Beach Florida which since 1879 has seen murder, rape, death and hatred. Tonight me, Nick, Aaron and our new friend Luna will be locked down inside this cage for tortured souls.” Zak said into the camera as he walked backwards towards the house.

“And you’re good Zak!” Aaron yelled as he shut off the camera.

The mansion was sat on top of a hill on the outskirts of town. It looked to have at least three floors and then an attic, the roof was black tiled to match the window frames and front door. A long awning stretched itself around the front of the house over the wooden decking outside the front door. The outside of the house was covered in faded purple panelling and entwined with wild ivy. It looked old, which it should as it’s at least 150 years old.

“Right let’s go do these interviews.” Zak said after checking his batteries on his microphone.

We head through the huge door and stand in the hallway listening to a historian tell us everything we already knew. A subtle feeling crept around us it looked like the guys didn’t notice but I sure did. It felt cold and I’m sure it was a bad thing that it chose me, I started feeling the need to run out crying. It was then I realised what was going on; the historian was telling us about the rapes that took place in the basement, this ‘feeling’ was the ghost of one of the sisters raped then murdered in the basement.

I tugged on Nick’s sleeve as he was closest, Zak continued talking and Aaron continued filming Zak.

“What’s wrong?” Nick whispered to me as soon as he saw the fear in my eyes.

“The Wilson sisters...one of them is here...and she’s crying...” I reply

“What do you mean?” there was a slight hint of panic in his voice.

“She’s here, and she wants us to help her.” I whisper gesturing to the empty space beside me which had got very cold in the last few seconds.

“Holy cow!  Zak!” Nick said calling to Zak

“What?” came a reply and Aaron swung the camera around to face Nick and me.

“Luna thinks one of the murdered sisters is here.” He replied

“Are you serious?” Zak said in disbelief

“Yeah come and feel.”

Zak walked over and placed his hands in the cold spot. “Get me an evp recorder Aaron.”

Aaron reached into his pocket and gave Zak the digital recorder.

“Mary, Summer, if you are here speak into this recorder, we want to help you not harm you.”  Zak called out.

I felt at first a breeze on my arm which was soon replaced with a burning sensation. “Geez! Guys my arm is burning.” I spoke out

The next thing I knew I had been dragged from the spot by Zak and my arm was now in the bright light of a torch. I looked down and there was three scratches running from my elbow to my wrist.

“I don’t remember that happening.” I stupidly said

“That’s because it just happened.” Zak replied “Aaron get over here!” he called into the hallway. God knows what the historian was thinking.

My arm was throbbing from the scratches which were now spouting droplets of blood near my wrist. My natural instinct was to cry but my pride was more important, Aaron was still filming as he came into view with Nick not too far behind carrying the first aid kit. _I must not cry._ I thought to myself.

Zak took the first aid kit from Nick and inspected my arm, wiping it with anti-bacterial wipes and then showing it to the camera.

“This is what makes our job dangerous, anytime, anyplace, anyone can be the subject of harm.” Nick said to Aaron’s camera.

“Dude, are you alright?” Aaron said to me.

“Yeah…it’ll take a bit more than some scratches to chase me outta here.” I mumble in reply. What happened to my bravery? I asked myself.

“Aaron, give the camera to Nick and then take Luna to the van and check her over again, Nick, you and I will continue the walkthrough.” Zak ordered.

“Got it Zak.” Aaron replied handing the shoulder-cam to Nick and ushered me to the front door. We both heard a whisper from behind us as we reached the door.

“Did you hear that?” I ask my new found friend

“Yeah…let’s hope it goes and follows Nick and Zak.” He chuckled and we sat in the van waiting for them to finish the walkthrough and interviews. We talked for a while before a familiar silence fell upon us. This was going to be one long night.

**~7:30pm – Sundown~**

“So, we’re about to get locked inside the DuVade mansion where there has been so much activity…pfft…I don’t know how we’re gonna handle it guys..” Zak said both to the camera and to the crew. “Dusty, the caretaker is going to do the honour in locking us in this crazy place. Right Dusty?”

“Certainly.” An old man replied jangling some keys.

We entered the door fist bumping Dusty as we went past. Hearing the door lock and the dawning realisation that I was now locked in a house where people died; was a little freaky. But I was also excited to get the investigation going.

Zak led the way to the sitting room where we were setting up base and going through our x’s.

“We have five of our ‘x’ cameras marked out; camera one; the daughters room, this is where people have reported feelings of sadness and have heard laughter. Camera two: the brothers room, this room has had things moved randomly and people have heard footsteps. Camera three; the kitchen; reports of the mother Lily cooking still, and also voices have been heard.” Zak relays to Aaron’s camera. “Camera four; the hallway, this is where people have seen full body apparitions and also where Luna got attacked earlier. Finally, camera five; the previously sealed off basement; this is where young women have felt sadness and partial possessions, guys have heard screams and yells, generally a bad feeling throughout the basement. So with that said let’s go dark and begin our investigation of the DuVade mansion.”

“I am so pumped for this dude.” Nick comments as they switch the cameras to night vision.

“Same here bro.” Aaron replied

Zak gave me a flashlight and told me that if for any reason I needed to turn the light on I should, but to bear in mind the infrared light of the cameras. With all set and ready to go the lights were turned off and darkness drifted through the house.

“Right let’s go to the kitchen first.” Zak said and led us through the doorways of the old mansion.

“Lily, are you cooking still?” Nick called out

I had also been given an EMF detector to hold in front of Aaron’s camera. Nick continued calling out to the spirit of Lily, the mother of the household.

“Did you know who broke into your house?”

I heard what I thought was a pot clanging, but it was so faint I hardly registered it. “Did you hear that Aaron?” I ask him.

“..No why? What did you hear?” he replied

“I thought I heard pots being moved…” I whisper

“Hear, take this.” Aaron said swapping the EMF detector for a digital recorder. “If you hear it again, let us know.”

Zak called out. “Lily, use our energy to communicate, touch us, speak to us, anything you want.”

After a few minutes of no activity we moved from the kitchen to the hallway. I was the last to leave the kitchen; just as I was passing through the door I felt a cold, hard pressure on my shoulder. I turned around expecting to see someone even if I knew the guys were already in the hallway. I heard a light humming, I held out the recorder to try and capture it. It seemed to want to keep me from going to the hallway. Little did I know that activity was kicking up where the rest of the crew were.


	3. DuVade mansion (part 2)

**Chapter Three  
The DuVade mansion part two**

“Are you getting this temperature drop Nick?” Zak hysterically asked Nick.

“Yeah, this is crazy.” Nick replied “Are you trying to communicate with us?”

 “It’s dropping like crazy, 72 degrees, 67, 54, 43! Holy Shit!” Zak shouted.

“Can you touch one of us? Speak. Yell as loud as you can into this recorder I’m holding.” Aaron called out

Nick turned his camera to the staircase where they’ve seen a full body apparition. “Luna? Luna? Where are you?”

“Where is she? Zak?” Aaron asked now aware of Nick’s worry.

“I thought she was with you Aaron.” Zak replied.

“She _was_ behind me when we left the kitchen. But...she must’ve stopped.”

“Nick, go find her. Aaron and I will stay here with the cold spot.” Zak barked

“Okay.” Nick said and set off through the doorways and rooms to get to the kitchen.

**~Meanwhile~**

“Hello? Is there anyone here with me?” I ask nervously. I stood in the kitchen in complete darkness. I felt a presence of something near me, it was getting cold. I rubbed my arms, as I did so my fingers traced the scratches on my forearm. “It’s cold..” I mumble

I then heard a voice from behind me; _“yes...it is…”_ I whirled around, recorder in hand, I could feel myself shaking with coldness and fear. “Who was that?” I ask quickly

I felt a pressure on my shoulder, harder and colder than before. “H-Hello? C-Can I help y-you?” I stuttered, my teeth chattering. It was freezing in the room. I thought I kept seeing shadows dancing around me.

“Are you in here with me?” _Stupid question to ask Luna._ I thought to myself.

“Lily? Is that you?” I whisper, I heard another voice; _“Don’t… be afraid….it’s safe here.”_ That sent chills down my body. “It’s safe here? Why? What’s going on?” I asked gaining more confidence. “Where isn’t it safe?”

The temperature dropped further, and I heard one more voice; _“The…basement…not safe…”_ Nick came through the door calling for me. I didn’t realise until that point how scared I was, I rushed to his side clutching the recorder in my hand.

“It’s freezing in here…what’s happened? Are you okay?” He asked pointing his handheld camera at me.

“A spirit has been here, it’s cold, and been saying things. Like; ‘It’s safe here’ ‘the basement – not safe’ It’s touched me as well, I’ve felt really anxious Nick.” I babble quickly to him.

“Whoa…let’s hope you caught it on the recorder. We’ve had a huge temperature drop in the main hallway.” He said placing a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Bloody hell, you’re freezing as well!”

“I was honestly scared when I heard it right behind me, but it didn’t _feel_ like a malicious spirit. More like a caring mother, like Lily.”

“Let’s catch up with Zak and Aaron and tell them what happened.” We walked through the doorway

Zak and Aaron were still in the hallway when Nick and I found them again. I relayed my experience to them, after I finished we heard footsteps above us.

“What’s above us?” Nick asked

“The brothers’ room, come on guys.” Zak quickly replied before taking off up the staircase with us in pursuit.

He burst into the room calling out to the brothers; “Daniel! Connor! Are you here with us?”

Nick and Aaron glanced around the room with the cameras in hand, I had been given another recorder and stood just inside the door listening to Zak yelling at the darkness.

“Which one of you got that rich man’s daughter pregnant?” I knew full well it was Daniel but Zak was just seeing if the spirits were intelligent.

“How did you feel when you found your mother and sisters dead?” Nick called out

The room was silent, no-one moved when suddenly we all heard the sound of a chair being dragged across the wooden floor.

We all turned towards the sound which sounded as if it was coming from behind Aaron, he turned and found an old chair almost immediately behind him.

“What the frig dude, that wasn’t there – I was standing in a huge empty space.” He remarked loudly.

“Calm down Aaron.” Nick said reassuringly “Did you do that Connor? Or was it Daniel?”

Footsteps were now being heard, walking through the door and stopping right next to me.

“G-Guys...help...” I whimpered

Zak came over and pulled me away from the door at this moment the chair behind Aaron fell over somehow.

“DUDE ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” Aaron shouted.

“Dude calm down!” Zak shouted back. “Don’t you dare prey on Luna! She isn’t who you want.” He shouted to the spirits.

We heard a chilling laugh from somewhere near Nick. I was slowly getting angrier with myself for being so useless and scared, I pushed past Zak and walked over to the centre of the room and yelled into the darkness;

“What do you want you cowards?! You can’t pick on a full grown man like Zak, Nick or Aaron but you’ll happily pick on me, well come one then! I’ve already got three scratches on my arm why don’t you do something worth my time!”

“Luna, don’t provoke them you don’t know what they’re capable of...” Zak warned me

I couldn’t help myself, my anger and frustration was building inside of me. “See? What kind of men are you? Can’t even respond to my demand!” I snapped, just then the huge oak door slammed with a loud bang.

My mind raced, why was I provoking them? What was going on? Zak told me not to so why did I continue? I don’t remember anything about feeling angry at them. I clutched my forehead having a sudden pain wash over me.

“Luna?” I hear Nick’s faint voice. I shake off the nagging feeling in my head.

“Yeah I know, that was stupid, but I-I just felt angry...i don’t know why...” I replied

“What?” Zak chimed in

“I just felt angry at being so useless I guess – I don’t know what came over me but...i just..I...” I attempt to explain

“Okay, I think we all need to take a breather before we continue.” Zak suggested “Let’s head back to base and refresh our batteries, have a drink and calm down. Then we’ll head to the daughters’ room.”

**~Back at ‘base’ ~**

Aaron was busy putting fresh batteries into nearly every piece of equipment, Zak was explaining the events leading to our 5 minute break to the only rolling camera and Nick was sat across the dining table from me, looking at me, just looking at me with a neutral look on his face.

“Why do you keep staring at me Nick?” I hiss trying not to disturb Zak’s reminiscing

“Because just before you got scratched today I noticed your eyes shifted weirdly. After quickly reviewing the static camera in the kitchen, which you were stood right in front of, I noticed that every time you have an experience your eyes shift just before it happens.” He replied in a hushed but calm tone.

“What? They ‘shift’? What the hell does that mean?” I snap quietly. Aaron glanced up at our exchange

“What I mean is that...they...quiver I guess is the word to use...they quiver quickly before something happens. Obviously you don’t know that you do it. It’s probably one of the reactions your body makes when a spirit is near.” He reluctantly said

“So you’re staring at me to see if they ‘quiver’ again?”

“Yes.”

“And what would you do if they quiver?” I reply

“I don’t know. But I’d know something’s about to happen.”

“Hey Luna, come over here a second.” Zak called from the other end of the table. Breaking Mine and Nick’s conversation which was getting more and more tense.

I get up and as I walk over to Zak I can see a look of concern etched onto his face. “Yeah Zak?”

“Look, I’m not sure what happened up there...” He pointed above us to the brothers’ room “But you need to control your emotions and mental state of mind. It could be dangerous if you let anything in.”

“Mm..okay..but one thing before we continue...” I whisper

“Yeah?”

“The voice in the kitchen I heard said that the basement isn’t safe...when we go down there later on, who should I stay close to? You’ll be provoking, Nick will be following suit and Aaron is the bait – I mean magnet of activity.”

“Magnet of activity, that’s a good one. Seriously though, Nick doesn’t do much provoking and to be honest, three girls got raped and murdered down there, I don’t think I’ll be provoking tonight.” He replied giving me a reassuring pat on the arm. “How are your scratches?”

“They’re alright, they stopped bleeding so now they’re just...there...” I laugh

“Well then – let’s sort out these spirits.” Zak says getting up. “Come on crew, let’s get to the daughters’ room, then to the basement.

 

We gathered all the equipment up and set off for the daughters’ room. Whilst climbing the creaking wooden stairs Zak had put on the video goggles and was calling out for communication.

“Use the energy in this machine to communicate, this device cannot hurt you and it is filled with words you can use to tell us something.”

We continued up the stairs with no words being said, we came to the door of the daughters’ room.

“So we’re outside the room where the Wilson sisters’ used to sleep, the oldest; Annabella was tried on the account of witchcraft and then hanged. Mary and Summer were the two younger sisters who were raped and murdered in this very house. We’re going to try and contact Annabella as she’s been heard singing in this room.” Zak whispered to Nick’s camera before opening the door. “However, I think Luna, can you enter first?”

“Sure…I guess…” I reply walking past the three guys wrapped in wires from their equipment.

“Annabella? Were you practising witchcraft?” I asked whilst holding my evp recorder out in front of me.

Nick followed me in with Zak and Aaron behind him. “If you weren’t practising witchcraft – how did you feel when you were hanged?” Nick called out

“ **SAD** ” the video goggles spat out.

“You felt sad?” Zak replied

“ **ANGRY** ”

“So you were not guilty of witchcraft then?” I confirmed

“ **FALSE** ”

It started getting cold again, we heard a female laughter from all around us. “Do you miss your sisters? I hear you were quite close.” Nick called out again

We then heard a soft crying and then the video goggles spat out another statement; “ **MARY** ”

“You miss Mary? Do you know what happened to her and Summer?” I asked. I started getting a lump in my throat.

The temperature dropped again. “Aaron what is the current temp?” Zak asked him

“43 degrees. Dude it’s cold…and I feel sad…like really sad…” he replied

“Same here Aaron. But…we need to continue.” I reply “ Annabella, your sisters were murdered. I’m sorry if you didn’t know. We’re going to go and try to speak with them in the basement. Is there anything you want us to say?”

“ **LOVE** ” it said and right afterwards; “ **FORGIVE….THEM** ”

“You forgive them? Okay, I’m sorry you were wrongly accused of witchcraft Annabella.” I said, I was unaware that I had started crying until I felt a tear stream down my cheek.

“Oh God, I’m crying...” I whimper.

“Okay Annabella. We’re going down to the basement now. Thank-you for your time…” Zak spoke out in a calm and comforting tone.

We left the bedroom and started back down the staircase. Halfway down Nick stopped right in front of a picture hanging on the wall.

“Nick?” Aaron asked out of the darkness

“I thought I heard something but when I turned around all I saw was this picture.” He replied

Zak was still wearing the video goggles when everything went quiet. There wasn’t even the sound of the wind creaking against the roof.

“So what did you hear?” He asks

“I thought I heard laughter…” Nick replied

We analysed the recorder I was holding and heard nothing but us walking down the stairs so we continued down to the basement.

The large door to the basement looked really old with claw marks around the handle. “Well that’s interesting….” Zak commented

Aaron reluctantly went in first holding a recorder at arm’s length. “So…are there any spirits here that would like to communi – ” He wasn’t able to finish, he just stood there looking into the darkness.

“Aaron? Dude?” Nick questioned

Zak had given me the thermal camera and as I was panning it around the room I thought I saw a weird shape heading straight for Aaron. “Aaron…something just flew at you I think…” I mumbled

“What?” Zak exclaimed

“I just saw a weird shape fly at Aaron…I don’t know what it was….”

“Give me the camera.” He said with outstretched hands. I gave it to him and he rewound the   footage. “OH MY GOD…” Zak exclaimed but before he could say anymore we all heard a high pitched scream which caused the audio on Aaron’s camera to die.

“Nick your camera’s still good?” I asked

“Yeah…” the investigator replied

“Who did that? Mary? Summer? Or was it the murderers?” Zak called out.

Aaron was bent over holding his head. “My ears are ringing dudes…I have a huge headache.”

“One of the reports was that guys would be yelled at, if the scream we heard and killed the audio on his camera was right next to him this might be his body’s reaction” I ramble

“Looks like you’re turning into a paranormal expert Luna. I agree with you there, Aaron come outside the room.” Zak replied

We regroup outside the basement door and change the batteries of all the equipment.

“So, Luna will go in first, followed by Nick. Aaron and I will wait just inside the door.” Zak instructed us.

“Got it Zak.” I say as I pick up an evp recorder and head into the dark and cold basement with Nick following me.

“Are the Wilson sisters here with us?” I call out

“If you are, then are you trapped here?” Nick asked

We waited in silence for any kind of activity. “I’m going to ask a really stupid question….” I forewarned Nick “How did you feel watching each other get raped?” I asked with hesitation.

A huge slam emitted from the doorway. “Aaron? Zak? Was that you?” Nick spun around and asked them

“No I swear that wasn’t us dude.” Aaron replied “It was the door, it slammed shut…”

“Did you slam the door because you were upset?” I ask.

A small moaning came from the far corner of the black obelisk. “Did you hear _that_?” Zak exclaimed

“Yeah, Mary and Summer, I have a message from your older sister Annabella.” I call out. “She says she forgives you, and that she loves you. She told us she was innocent.”

The temperature dropped suddenly. I felt a lump in my throat for the second time that night. “Are you using my energy to communicate?” I ask

Nick walked around the basement looking at his LCD screen when he stopped and looked up. “Guys, is there something standing in front of me?”

“No, it’s clear until you hit the wall.” Zak replied also scanning the room with his camera.

“I swear my camera picked up a weird light.” Nick said “I’ll review the footage.”

I began shaking, all of a sudden I felt vulnerable, I felt a hatred for Zak, not like a petty hate, but an unexplainable hate. I wanted to scream until my lungs hurt. My legs gave away and I collapsed to the floor.

“Luna?!” Aaron yelled after he saw me fall

Zak and Nick ran to my side. After hearing their voices yelling something I blacked out.

**~ Zak’s P.O.V~**

“Luna wake up!” I yelled to her shaking her limp body. She opened her eyes but something seemed wrong, she gave me a hard stare.

“uh…Luna?” Nick shook her slightly

“Get away from me….you male scum…” she muttered

“Zak…she isn’t in her right mind…” Nick stared at me, I’ve seen that look plenty of times. It was written on his face that he was scared.

“Luna you need to get a grip. Don’t let it beat you.” I urged her.

She lashed out and nearly knocked the camera out of my hand. “don’t come near me...” In the split second our eyes connected I could see she was fighting with all her energy against the spirit. Just like when Nick was possessed at Moon River Brewery.

“Aaron where’s the holy water Bishop Long gave us?” I yelled to him, Nick kept his camera on Luna as she paced the darker side of the room where our flashlights didn’t reach.

“Uh, back at base dude, I’ll go back and -” Just as Aaron turned to leave the door, which had been reopened slammed shut with more force than before and remained stuck.

“What the fuck? It won’t open Zak!” Aaron hysterically replied.

I turned around to face Nick, he had walked slowly over to where Luna was glaring from a corner of the basement trying to coax her out of her state.

“Are we upsetting you by being here Mary?” he addressed the older of the two sisters murdered down here. “Is this your way of showing us? By taking Luna’s body?”

“You don’t know what it felt like....” came a voice different than Luna’s from her body.

“You can’t just take her body like this though...” Nick reasoned

Luna’s already battered body hit the floor once more, at the same time Aaron finally opened the door leading up to the main floor of the mansion.

“Okay, let’s get her upstairs guys before she gets attacked again.” I said. As Aaron collected the equipment and Nick half carried Luna upstairs I stood in the basement and tried to make sense of what just happened.

“ _Help....me....._ ” came a faint whisper from where Luna had fell. “ _please..._ ”

I turned and swiftly exited. The DuVade Mansion had a lot of disturbing activity tonight.

**~ Front hallway – 6:30am ~**

“I still don’t remember anything after the temperature dropping suddenly...” I repeated myself for the thousandth time whilst holding my head. We were about to get freed from the horrors we had experienced inside the once happy residence.

“As soon as we get back to the hotel we’re going to be using some of that holy water, on all of us, I’m not having anything following us anywhere. Got that?” Zak sternly said to us as we heard the door unlock.

“Good night?” Old man Dusty asked us as we exited the building.

“Well we certainly won’t forget it anytime soon...” Nick replied

“I second that, even if I can’t remember everything...” I chimed in

We load the van and drive back to the hotel, the harsh morning sun making my head ache as I rest my head against the window. I felt drained of all energy and could barely keep my eyes open.

“Yo Luna, stay awake until we cleanse the room. We don’t want any more possessions.” Zak barked from the front passenger seat.

“But I’m really tired Zak…I want to sleep…” I mumbled

We reached our joined rooms around seven thirty, I was about to collapse on my bed when Nick tugged my arm, ushering me towards Zak’s room.

“Come on, it’ll only take a minute.” He said as I glare at him.

I slowly walked into Zak’s room as he was putting holy water on both Aaron and himself. “Luna come here, need to get this done in case anything followed us here.” Zak ordered as he threw the small bottle to Nick. “Use this bro.”

Nick anointed his own head before splashing water on my forehead. “It burns…” I whimper as a burning sensation makes my headache worse.

“Good, that means that whatever followed you is being repelled by the holy water.” Zak explained

“Zak where did you put that passage Bishop Long gave us for this occasion?” Aaron asked

Zak bought out a folded piece of paper and began reading; “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth I command with this sprinkling of holy water that every spirit attached to any person present to leave and not to return.”

The huge headache that had gotten worse when Zak started reading was suddenly gone although I was still drained of all energy and needed to sleep.

“So…how is everyone feeling now?” he asked

“Fine, tired but otherwise perfectly fine.” Nick and Aaron both replied

“The huge headache I had is now gone…can I go to sleep now?” I mumbled

“Sure. I think we all need sleep. I’ll see you around supper time then.” He replied before heading to the bathroom.

I walked back into my room and just fell onto my bed in what I was wearing all night. My eyes closed and darkness swallowed me.


	4. We're going to the Stanley Hotel!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now is probably a good time to point out that I had no plot and I was making the events up as I went along whilst writing the rest of this.  
> Personally I think it turned out quite well but you can be the judge of that.

**Chapter Four  
We’re going to the Stanley hotel!**

We all got up at weird times that day, Nick awoke at three in the afternoon and started analysing evidence, Aaron woke up around five o’clock and raided the mini fridge in both rooms, Zak woke around half six and made a lot of noise shuffling bags around and then helping Nick with the evidence. I woke up at eight in the evening and found the room looking like a tornado swept through it. Wrappers of food, travel bags, equipment, cameras and wires everywhere.

“Whoa dude…what happened? What time is it?” I asked a little bewildered

“It’s 8:15 at night, everyone’s packing up for tomorrow.” Nick replied still at his laptop

“Why what’s happening?”

“We’re going to the Stanley hotel. We’re investigating the day after tomorrow but we need to travel soon so get up and pack. Zak said we’re leaving around nine.”

“Is there any chance of getting food tonight? I’m starving.” I complained

“Aaron raided both mini-fridges so you’ll have to wait ‘til we all go down to dinner in about half an hour.”

“Fine…I’ll guess I’ll put some clean clothes on and start packing.” I sigh as I make my way to the bathroom.

After I finished packing what little possessions I brought with me Zak practically bounded in to the room with a huge grin on his face.

“You won’t believe what I caught on EVP Nick!”

“What?” Nick replied putting his laptop aside.

“A voice clear as day saying; ‘please help, it hurts.’” He was just like a little boy at Christmas.

“Whoa…I wanna listen to _that._ ” Nick exclaimed

“ **I** want to get some food….but that’s not going to happen…” I said loudly.

“Okay…we’ll get some food then listen to the evp…where’s Aaron?” Nick asked Zak

“Already eating in the restaurant.”

“He’s already in the restaurant?! Why didn’t you tell me? I’m starving here!” 

“I didn’t know you were hungry…” Zak teasingly said. I threw my water bottle at him.

“Enough of this, my stomach requires food. NOW!”

“You’re so demanding. Are all girls like this?” Zak jokingly commented as he dodged the flying bottle.

“No, just the stubborn ones like me.”

After a few minutes of comments being tossed back and forth Zak, Nick and I walk down to find Aaron in the restaurant.

“Yo dude you eaten already?” Zak asked the camera man who was sat at a table with three other chairs.

“Nah, I was waiting for you guys. What took you so long?” Aaron replied

“Luna slept in. Then Zak found an EVP and soon after Luna started demanding food.” Nick explained taking a seat next to Aaron.

“I need food.” I bluntly state

“I think we _all_ need to eat something. Then get a good night’s sleep for the insane road trip tomorrow.” Zak stated

Zak and I sit in the remaining seats and the rest of the evening we spent idly chatting over our plates of food.

**~Next Morning – 8:30 am~**

“So is everything packed?” I ask Nick for the twelfth time.

“Yep. Camera, equipment, travel cases, wires, the works. Stop stressing. You’re becoming like Zak.” He replied for the thirteenth time

“Okay, so…now what do we do?” I ask

“Wait in reception for Zak and Aaron. Then we’ll get on the road for Colorado it’s going to be a long drive.”

“I’ve been to France by coach before. 24 hours on a coach with 30 hormonal teenagers, not so much fun. So I’m used to long rides.” I boast

“Really? Well you’ll have to put up with Aaron, Zak and possibly Billy, and they all act like children.” Nick replied

“Of course _you’re_ not egging them on in any way are you?” I slyly comment as I help gather up the various cases around our room.

“ME?” He asked jokingly shocked.

“Yes, you, Nick Groff. Still acting childish with Zak, Aaron and Billy.” I spell out for him “Anyway we need to get this crap to reception.”

We take several trips from our room to the reception area where surprisingly Zak and Aaron were waiting.

“Bloody hell, how long have you been standing there?” I remark

“For about ten minutes waiting for you two with our equipment.” Aaron replied

“oops sorry dudes.” Nick apologized

“Just get it in the van.” Zak said “I’ll drive the first leg of the journey.” He walked out of the building towards the van.

“Zak seems mad.” I mutter

“Nah, just annoyed, he’ll be alright when we get going and start pumping out the tunes.” Aaron

We gathered up the entirety of the luggage and packed it Tetris-style into the van with Zak waiting impatiently in the driver’s seat.

“Come on guys, I want to get going.” He snapped

“Calm down dude. Sheesh, we’ll have plenty of time to get from here to Colorado. Take a chill pill.” Aaron remarked

“It’s going to take three days guys – we need to get going a.s.a.p.” He snapped again.

“Dude seriously! Did you get enough sleep last night?” Nick asked whilst shutting the van doors

“I don’t know…” Zak suddenly seemed as if he would drop to the floor in exhaustion.

“Maybe I should drive the first leg – you don’t seem awake enough dude.” Nick suggested

“Yeah…maybe…” a faint answer came from our normally excited leader.

We all got into the van, with Nick at the wheel, and drove off in the general direction of Colorado.

 

**~a few hours later~**

 

Aaron had since swapped places with Nick in the driver’s seat and Zak had fallen asleep next to me in the back seat. It was a nice day outside the cramped van, the sky was blue, the sun wasn’t as harsh as a few days ago but it seemed too quiet in the van. We had passed through at least one state boundary and were currently on a road in the middle of farmland.

“Which state are we in right now?” I ask absent-mindedly staring out of the window

“Alabama.” Nick replied

“Why couldn’t we take a plane to Colorado? Wouldn’t it have been easier?”

“Zak’s still getting over his jet-lag from England, and the activity from the other night’s location. That and it would actually cost less for us to drive there.” Aaron explained

“Fine…when are we going to stop for food?” I ask getting impatient

“Soon, but if Zak’s still asleep someone’s going to have to wake him up – and that’s not a nice task…” Nick commented

“Just a thought I’ve been having over the past few hours…where’s Billy?”

“Oh he’s meeting us after our lockdown in Colorado at our hotel before the next lockdown in Nevada.” Nick told me

“Okay…”

Silence falls in the van once again. “ _God damn it Zak why did you have to be asleep?_ ”  I thought to myself. As if he had heard my thoughts the investigator stirred from his slumber and yawned loudly.

“Where are we?” he mumbled

“Near Greenville in Alabama. Nice sleep Zak?” Aaron replied

“Yeah…I’m hungry.” Zak said

“Well it _is_ four in the afternoon.” I mutter

“We might as well get some food then, should we find a motel or something whilst we’re at it?” Nick asked

“Yeah…sure…” Zak mumbled in reply again

“Sure thing, Zachary.” Aaron taunts from behind the wheel.

“Cut that out Aaron – or I’ll make you be bait again.” Zak threatened.

“Ooh I’m _so scared_.” Aaron chuckled whilst pulling off the highway.

 

**~Two days later~**

 

After two days of Zak being slightly cranky, Aaron constantly wanting coffee , Nick always seeming to be driving and me wishing the drive would end, we were all relieved to finally pull up to the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado.

“Thank God that’s over.” I remark getting out of the van and stretching. “No more driving for a while.”

“No more Zak being cranky over nothing eh?” Aaron chuckled

“That too.”

“The elk are still wandering around here.” Nick said pointing to a herd nearby.

“Wow, I’ve never seen elk in the wild before.” I exclaim

“They’re not exactly native to England are they? The closest you probably get to elk are deer, and that’s a huge jump.”  Aaron replied

“Guys can we _please_ get our stuff into reception? It’s kind of a big deal as we have interviews to do and cameras to set up.” Zak snapped

“I thought you said Zak was back to normal.....” I mutter to Aaron and Nick

“We thought he was, maybe he just needs to get some ghost hunting done to clear out his bad mood.”  Aaron suggested.

We gather up what was left of the equipment in the van and followed Zak into the reception of the infamous Stanley Hotel. The 138 room hotel was built by a man called Freelan O’Stanley and opened in 1909. Stanley and his wife fell in love with the surrounding views after he was sent to the Rocky Mountains to recover from tuberculosis. The hotel was built with Georgian architecture and stands out amongst the stunning mountains and streams of Estes Park.

**~Three hours later ~**

 

After hearing about all the claims of activity Zak decided that we should stay in some of the haunted rooms alone for the night.

“So, Aaron you stay in room 428 where that woman got kissed on the head, Nick you stay in room 412 where the bed apparently levitated, I’ll stay in room 401 where Lord Dunraven lurks and Luna you stay in room 418 where the children spirits run around.” Zak ordered us. “Any questions?”

“Nope.” Nick and Aaron replied.

“Just one...so we’re staying, by ourselves...in apparently haunted rooms....all night?” I asked

“Yeah, is there a problem with that?” Zak asked

“..No, just clarifying what‘s happening. Will there be ‘x’ cameras in our rooms?”

“Yeah, and we really should be setting them up now.” Zak answered sharply

“Okay, let’s get on with it, for all we know we could be missing prize evidence right now.” I snap “Chop Chop Zackary.”

Aaron and Nick sniggered slightly before gathering wires and cameras up. I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty at being so inconsiderate of Zak’s feelings at the moment. He’s obviously not sleeping well and it’s affecting his moods badly, then again there was no call for rudeness.

Aaron and Zak go off towards the ballroom with two cameras meaning that Nick and I were left putting all four cameras into our rooms for the night ahead. Since the incident with my slight possession in the DuVade mansion I felt kind of distant from the rest of the crew, I knew that it took some people weeks to get over possessions and I also knew I needed to talk to someone about it, someone who had experience with this kind of thing.

“Nick, can I ask you something?” I ask as we finish setting up the camera in Zak’s room.

“Sure, what is it?” he replied waving his hand in front of the camera.

“It’s about the last investigation, in the basement...what actually happened?”

He stopped adjusting the camera and looked at me; I fidgeted with the camera in my hand whilst the silence dragged on for what seemed like an eternity.

“Well...we entered the basement, noises were heard, and things were seen. After a while you seemed to change, you started shaking and then you collapsed. You then seemed a completely different person, nearly smacking Zak ‘round the head. Apparently when yours and Zak’s eyes connected you had the same look in your eyes that I did when I was...uh...attacked in Moon River Brewery.” Nick told me as we walked into Aaron’s room and started setting up the camera.

“I see...I can’t remember anything after thinking... actually never mind...” I mumble

“Thinking what?” Nick stopped what he was doing for the second time that day and looked at me.

“I started feeling vulnerable and then this voice inside me was telling me that Zak was bad and I started feeling a hatred for him. I wanted him dead...” I mumbled in reply. Nick gave me a reassuring hug and then finished setting up the camera.

“Don’t tell Zak please, I don’t want him thinking I hate him.” I plead Nick

“Luna what ever happened in the basement clearly wasn’t of your doing. You weren’t yourself; don’t beat yourself up about it, although if you insist I promise I won’t tell Zak. But you need to promise me that you’ll straighten things out with him – he’s feeling slightly guilty as well.” He replied

“ _He’s_ feeling guilty?” I ask shocked

“Yeah, he thinks he’s failed you because you got attacked, that and the sleep deprivation are what’s making him grouchy. I’ve been on the road with him for over ten years; I can tell what’s wrong.”

 “Okay. I will.” I state. “Come on we need to get these cameras set up.”

We finished setting up the other two cameras and met Zak and Aaron in the hotel reception, which had a nice friendly feeling around it, two huge staircases leading up to the first floor. The reception had plants decorating it and pieces of artwork hanging on the walls. One of these paintings was off Freelan O Stanley himself. Nick beckoned Aaron away towards the restaurant leaving me and a very grumpy Zak alone.

“Zak?” I say barely above a whisper.

“Yeah?” he replied quickly. A silence settled between us before he finally spoke again, “Look, if it’s about what happened in the basement-”

“Zak, stop.” I cut him off “What happened in the basement was my fault, I left myself open for the spirit and that was a stupid thing to do, you told me to not leave myself open and to be on guard so if it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine not yours. Don’t beat yourself up over what happened.”

He stood looking at me with a slight look of shock coated with admiration. “Luna, we can’t prevent spirits getting attached to us, so when things like this happen we need all the help we can get. When you looked me in the eyes that night I could see you were fighting it with all your strength, I’ve been there remember?”

“Poveglia Island....” I mumble

“Yeah. It took me two weeks to get over that experience. Nick too with his possession at Moon River, he took a while to shake it off.”

“Mmhmm…”

“Look, I’m sorry for being a grouch – I don’t sleep well after something like that happens.” Zak apologized

“It’s okay…” I mumble in reply

“Good, don’t put yourself in a dangerous situation tonight, after all we’ll all be sleeping and won’t be able to pull you out of a possession.” He joked

“Ha yeah, don’t worry I’ll be okay.” I assure him

“Nice, well we should get back with Aaron and Nick before the sun sets.”

We found Nick and Aaron in the ‘base’ room just finishing setting up the monitor with the live video stream from each of our rooms, the ballroom and room 217, the room where Stephan King stayed. Both Nick and Aaron turned to greet us with a smile as we walked in.

“We’re ready for tonight Zak.” Aaron reported

“Good, for now just relax and take in the atmosphere here. When it gets dark; try and be ready for things to start happening.” Zak ordered. He seemed in a much better mood than before. It’s pretty clear that Nick knows Zak like a brother.

“Got it boss.” Aaron said “I’m going to get some stuff to eat, see y’all later.” He then exited the room and walked down to the elevator.

“I’m going to go lie down, my head is hurting.” Zak mumbled before walking down the corridor.

Nick and I were left in the base room, “So did you straighten things out with Zak?” he asked me

“Yeah we’re cool now. He seemed happier anyway.” I replied. After speaking with Zak my mind seemed less cluttered with thoughts and I felt better.

“Yeah there’s the definite spring in his step that he normally has. So what are you going to do now? There’s about three hours left of daylight.” He said

“Hmm, I think I might just go to my room and settle in, address the spirits you know? What about you?”

“I don’t know, probably find Aaron and eat something.” He replied vaguely

“Well I’ll see you later I guess.” I say as I walk out of base and down the corridor to my room. 

Room number 418 had claims that children would be heard running around and a person sitting on the bed. I walked through the door and looked around the room. A double bed was in the centre of the room with a table either side, a TV sat on top of the chest of drawers next to a mirror facing the front of the bed. A closet door lay slightly ajar which bugged me slightly as I knew it was closed when Nick and I set up the camera next to the bathroom door, shooting the entire room.

“Okay, I’m pretty sure that door was closed when we came through earlier.” I said out loud hoping the camera would pick it up. I had been given a handheld camera, a digital recorder and a non-contact thermometer to use during the night. I unpacked what little belongings I had brought with me and then just led on the bed with the recorder beside me recording.

“Are there any children with me today?” I ask. The room remained silent; I decided it would be better to wait until it got dark before asking any questions. I led on the bed staring at the ceiling thinking about the recent events and wondering what to do to pass the time when I thought of calling Kate.

“She’ll probably be still awake.” I say to myself as I reach for my mobile and called her. After a few minutes she answered.

“What do you want?” She grumbled at me

“Keito! How’s it going?” I ask

She hung up on me, I suppose that’s what I would’ve done if she’s called me at some insane time of the morning. I glanced at the clock on the wall, 4:30pm.

“Hmm, still too early to be investigating...I wonder what the guys are doing...” I thought to myself.

I dragged myself off the bed and walked out of my room, down the corridor towards the elevator thinking about all the crazy paranormal claims to this location including the story of the sounds of children playing in the corridors when there’s no-one there. One thing that kept fresh in my mind as I walked down the crimson coloured carpeted hallway was Stephan King getting his inspiration for his book ‘ _the Shining_ ’ whilst staying in the hotel. Another thing that I thought was weird was how the hotel was built on both limestone and quartz, which are both natural conductors of geo-magnetic energy which fuels paranormal activity. _It’s all a little too coincidental…_ I thought to myself. 

I took the elevator down to reception and found Aaron in the restaurant drinking coffee, and lots of it. “Hey Aaron.” I call to him

“Hey Luna!” He replied “how ya doing?”

I walk over and sit opposite him “I’m fine, I tried calling Kate and she wasn’t happy that I woke her up.”

“What time is it in England?”

“I don’t know – either early in the morning or late at night.” I reply “Have you ever been to England?”

“Yeah, we went there for the Ancient Ram Inn investigation – and the Edinburgh vaults.”

“Oh yeah! How could I forget? The Ancient Ram Inn isn’t far from my home – well it’s not far from the centre of Bristol.” I chuckle

“England is so weird, you drive on the wrong side of the road!” Aaron exclaimed waving his arms around

“No, we drive on the right side of the road which is the left side.” I correct him

“You just said you drive on the right side!” he cried

“Oh, I meant we drive on the _correct_ side of the road – which is the left side.”

“Who is to say which side is the correct side?” He reasoned

“Fair point my friend. But it’s not that weird when you think about it. So did you like England?” I replied

“Yeah, it’s freaky though; the architecture in Edinburgh was so gothic it looked like it came out of a horror movie. You know I started becoming obsessed with skulls after that investigation.”

“Uh…Edinburgh is in Scotland, not England, if you walked up to a Scotsman whilst in a bar in Edinburgh and said ‘well it’s nice here in England’ they would probably punch you in the face.” I point out to him

“Oh…oops,” he laughed

“But I agree with you on the whole ‘it’s so gothic blah blah…’ but you know what?”

“what?”

“I think we can both agree that Poveglia island has got to be the freakiest place ever, despite that fact I’ve never been there, it just looks spooky. Any place that is sealed off by the government has got to be worthy of being classed as ‘spooky’.”

“Oh don’t get me started on that place, it’s literally hell. Zak got possessed and had he remembered having the machete on his belt – ugh…I could’ve been headless man….ughh..” Aaron recalled his terror at Poveglia island. “Anyway, back to this investigation – the Stanley hotel – experienced anything yet?” he changed the subject whilst finishing what must’ve been his fourth coffee of the day.

“No not yet, then again it’s still daylight so maybe they’re nocturnal. They _are_ ghosts after all.” I reply

As Aaron ordered another coffee Zak came bounding through the doorway to the restaurant calling to Nick who followed him in about something or other;

“So I walk into my room and the closet door is wide open and you tell me you didn’t leave it open?” His voice boomed

“Both Luna and I can say that the closet door was closed Zak, we didn’t touch it dude.” Nick replied

“What’s going on now?” I asked them both turning around to face them.

“Zak found his closet door wide open and assumes we’re playing a trick on him.” Nick replied

“Ah, I see – well it was closed when we set up the camera so…either the wind pushed it open or Lord Dunraven doesn’t want you in his room….have fun.” I reply

“Well that sounded cheerful.” Aaron commented

“I know right? But seriously – have fun in that room.” I say whilst trying not to burst out laughing at Zak.

“Okay…getting back to what I was going to say earlier; it’s getting pretty dark out there – and by the way; there are no guests in the hotel as it’s not holiday season so if you hear anything it’s not any guests, and obviously as we’re the only ones here the lights will be turned off at nine so after that it’ll be night vision on all cameras. Got it?” Zak told us

“So we have run of the place then?” Aaron asked finishing his fifth cup of coffee

“yeah, and stop drinking so much coffee Aaron, it’ll probably make your paranoia worse.”

“I guess we better get everything set up before we go dark then – not that we’re doing much investigating.” Nick suggested

“Well I agree with you there Nick so I shall bid you all fairwell and good luck, I hope all the ghosts go your way instead of mine.” I tell them before walking out towards the staircase.


	5. Room 418

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So basically I did some weird thing where I wrote 4 different POV for the same time period and put them in four different chapters because they were all really short pieces, for the sake of keeping things as they were originally I'll keep them separate.

**Chapter five  
Room 418**

**Luna's POV**

I walked along the long corridors towards my room panting from climbing up four flights of stairs. “Why did I climb up all those stairs?” I scolded myself as I came to the door of room 418 where I was staying the night. As I entered the room I noticed the closet door was opened wider than when I came in previously that evening.

“God damn it – I hope that camera caught this opening.” I exclaimed whilst shutting the main room door and latching it. I tried remembering what claims of activity took place in this room but the only thing I could focus on was the closet door opening.

“I wonder if the door opens naturally…” I speculated walking over to the sliding door. After sliding it back and forth a few times I came to the conclusion that it would take more than a simple breeze to move it, even after I found a vent in the closet. I shut the door and made it pretty obvious to the x-camera that it was closed, I couldn’t help but think of the guys’ faces when they review the footage of me waving my arms franticly  at the door trying to get my point across.

“Well maybe I’ll get some EVPs now then…” I mutter as I sit cross-legged on the bed facing the mirror with a recorder in one hand and the handheld camera in my other hand.

“So are there any little children in this room with me?” I asked glancing at my phone – eight thirty - that means they’ll be turning all the lights off in the hotel in about half an hour.

I panned the camera around the room when I felt a weird sensation that someone was watching me. “Is there someone here?” I ask

A noise came from inside the closet causing a shiver to run up my spine. I turned around with camera in hand to face the door. “Do it again.” I commanded. The door rattled slightly and my eyes grew wide with fear. I urged my shaking hand towards the handle of the door whilst still sitting on the bed, as my hand got nearer the door opened. I screamed and fell off the bed onto the floor.

“Ow…” I muttered getting off the floor, when I looked back at the door it was closed again.

“Okay, so I guess you’re finding this funny…” I say out loud to whatever was making this happen. “Well how about you speak into this recorder I’m holding instead.” I walked over towards the bathroom door, what I didn’t notice was the main door unlatching behind me. As I walked into the bathroom I heard a noise that I can only describe as a laughter-type sound coming from the wall between the bathroom and the hallway.

“What the hell…who is here with me? I demand you speak into the recorder I’m holding.”

My camera froze up for no reason, as I walked out of the bathroom trying to unfreeze it I saw an indentation on the bed. My mind flashed back to Zak telling me that one of the accounts of activity was a person sitting on the bed.

“Okay…now is not the time for my camera to be freezing…” I hissed as if the camera would respond. “Are you the one who was opening the closet door earlier?”

The only slight response I got was the door rattling slightly again before the main door of my room shook violently.

“Bloody hell!” I shouted, I instantly looked to my handheld camera hoping that it unfroze in time to see the door shake as well as looking up at the x-camera I hoped that it caught the door shaking too.

“Now you’re scaring me slightly…” I whispered, lightly hitting the camera, thankfully it wasn’t broken and had unfroze itself. I barely had enough time to regroup my thoughts before the lights went out.

“Fuck…” I cursed “I thought when Zak said they’d turn the lights out that they would just turn them off at the switch – not cut the power to them” I said out loud trying to find the night vision setting on the camera. When I had found it the first thing I saw was the damn closet door was open again.

“Seriously?! What is it with that bloody door?” I practically shouted, as soon as those words left my mouth the main door opened too. “For all that is- what the hell is going on?” I walked to the door and closed it again; I noticed that the handle was as cold as ice.

“All this crazy stuff and it’s only quarter past nine…this is going to be a long night….” I say to the camera in my hand. “Okay, who is with me here tonight? Are there any children present?” I ask

A whispering voice came from around me, it felt cold around waist height, and the only explanation I could offer was that there was at least one child with me in the room. The room was so dark and I could barely see anything which is probably why I felt more paranoid than normal. I panned the camera around the room again at the same time I addressed the spirits around me;

“If there are any children here – to you wanna play a game? There’s a friend of mine down the corridor in room 412, go and scare him for me. If he gets scared and tells me in the morning about it then you win, if he doesn’t get scared then I win. How about that?”

I’m pretty sure I heard laughter around me but I wasn’t too sure what it was, but something I did know was that I heard was footsteps going up and down the corridor. I opened the main door and panned up and down the corridor and after seeing nothing I said to my camera;

“Just documenting that I heard footsteps and there is no-one in the hotel other than me, Nick, Aaron and Zak so I’m not sure what is going on…but there are footsteps coming from this corridor.”

“Was that you going to scare my friend down the corridor?” I ask the darkness in my room. The activity dropped significantly after that, no noises were heard, neither door mysteriously opened and the temperature returned to normal. I decided now was a good as time as any to get changed after ten minutes had passed with no activity, I left the camera on the bed next to the continuously rolling recorder incase any freaky things happened whilst I was in the bathroom.

When I came out of the bathroom a few minutes later the camera had been moved slightly, it had been facing the mirror but as I went over to it I noticed it was pointing towards the main door of the room yet the recorder was in the same position I left it in.

“Well that’s a little weird...” I comment as I pick up the camera, I nearly dropped it when I realized how cold it was and that it had shut off in the space of two minutes. “I know that it had at least another ten minutes of tape left and half an hour of battery life left in it – so what the hell is going on?” I said to myself. I frantically tried to turn the camera back on but with only a flashlight to guide me it was a little tricky and with no avail, it wouldn’t turn on again.

“Aaron’s going to kill me...” I mumble as I search through the equipment bag looking for a spare battery and tape. “Or Zak...depends who finds out first...” I finally found a spare battery and replaced the apparent dud one in the camera.

“Now for a new tape I guess...” I tried turning the camera on to try and keep something recording whilst I looked through the bag for a new tape to put in and thankfully it lived again “I suppose the EVP recorder could use a new battery...or was I given two of them?” I mutter to myself as I tipped the contents of the bag onto the bed and searching what fell out by flashlight.

“Where the bloody hell is that tape?” I snap as I ruffle through the stuff on the bed. It hadn’t occurred to me that perhaps Aaron hadn’t packed another tape and as I was considering this possibility I panned around the room with only two minutes of tape to go, when I panned over to the closet I noticed that once again, the door was open. I wandered over to the closet and looked inside – I found the tape and the extra recorder on the floor of the closet.

“Those pesky kids...” I mutter picking both items up. “Were you playing a little joke on me? Hiding my equipment eh? Classic, anyway – I’m going to go to sleep now, both cameras and this recorder will be rolling all night so feel free to use them to communicate.” I call out whilst setting the camera and the new recorder on the bedside table.

I briefly checked my phone and with the time being quarter to eleven I decided to just let the cameras roll and see what I can capture during the rest of the night. I climbed into bed and slipped into the deeper darkness of my sub-conscience. 

 


	6. Room 412

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep noticing that I swap from Past tense to Present tense a lot. Dear lord what was I thinking when I proof read this?

**Chapter six  
Room 412**

**Nick’s POV**

After Luna walked up to her room I decided to do a bit of exploring around the hotel before I started investigating.

“See ya' later Aaron – I’m going for a wander.” I call to him before walking across the main reception area towards the infamous ballroom.

The ballroom had an x-camera set up in it as the claims of paranormal activity were that Stanley’s wife sometimes plays the piano when no-one else is there and that parties are heard when there are no guests around to throw a party. From the ballroom I walked down to the basement to where an old employee tunnel was, one winter an employee was crushed to death when the old tunnel used in the winter to transport supplies collapsed on top of him. As I looked around the tunnel I saw chunks of limestone and the odd speck of quartz in the walls of the basement.

“Natural geo-magnetic conductors of paranormal activity...” I mutter to myself, “But is that residual – playing over and over again – or intelligent – communicating with us smartly?”

I walked back to the restaurant and found Aaron still sat drinking coffee where I had left him 15 minutes earlier. “You know, drinking that much coffee isn’t going to help you Aaron.” I say to him as I sit on the chair opposite him.

“I can’t help it dude, I just need coffee or I’ll freeze up when a ghost comes near me.” He replied

“What kind of crap is that?!” I laugh “You get all freaked out whether you’ve had nine coffees or not.”

“Whatever dude.” He chuckled taking another sip.

We idly chat for half an hour before Aaron reaches into a plastic bag next to him and brings out a blonde wig.

“What the hell Aaron?! Did Zak give you that?” I excitedly exclaim

“Yeah, I’m staying in the room where that woman got kissed on the forehead so Zak thought I should wear this wig to draw out the spirit…” Aaron explained to me spinning the wig around. “I swear Zak’s losing his sanity…”

“We all are – ghost hunting...or in our case ‘ghost hunting-until-we-find-a-demon’ both have their costs; our sanity, wellbeing, mental state of mind…and generally our lives.” I speculate

“But in the end…we get some great evidence and have some awesome experiences…so it’s all good.” Aaron replies

“Yeah, anyway I’m gonna head to my room, we’ve got an hour before Zak cuts the lights – literally he’s cutting the wires in the power box.”

“He’s allowed to do that?” Aaron asked me shocked

“I don’t know, but he’s going to. So I’ll see ya’ tomorrow unless you get scared...ha-ha” I taunt him

“Shut it dude, but seriously if some ghost kisses me I’m out of here!” He called to me as I left the room.

I take the lift to the fourth floor and walk down the corridor towards my room when the lights go out. “God damn it Zak, give us a chance to get ready” I mumble to myself as I stagger down the corridor without a flashlight to guide me. “Room 412…where the hell is that?”

I hear a thud from the room next to me, “That’s probably Luna’s room….so my room must be down four rooms…” I count the doors I pass and try the key in the lock of the fourth door. It opened and I searched for the equipment bag in total darkness.

“I’m seriously going to kill Zak when I find him.” I hiss as I find the flashlight and the camera in the bag. I turned on the camera straight to night vision and spoke to it;

“So here we are in the Poltergeist room of the Stanley Hotel - room 412. Zak’s cut the power and it’s around nine in the evening, so let’s get our hunt on…” I grab the digital recorder from the bag and press record hoping to catch some voices.

“When you think about the five stages of poltergeist activity I’d say it’s a stage four if the bed supposedly levitates in this room…but I’ve yet to see that.” I say out loud. “Is the spirit who woke that woman up by shaking her bed here tonight?”

I wait in silence stood near the bed; the bed faced the window and was next to the closet door. I checked the x-camera standing in the doorway of the bathroom to make sure it had enough light.

“Come on, move something, make the bed levitate – do it!” I yelled, I heard a faint voice but I assumed it was Luna a few doors down. A few seconds later I heard her in the corridor talking about footsteps.

“It’s surprising how clear I can hear Luna when the hotel is quiet like this…” I said to the camera. I reviewed the digital recorder and found a voice imprinted on it;

 “ _You better start talking…”_

“So you can speak to me – show yourself!”

I felt a cold breeze envelop me and I started feeling dizzy, I sat on the bed and felt it move slightly.

“Just sayin’ it’s cold in here and I feel dizzy…so if I throw up then you guys know why….” I mumbled to the camera. Things in the room began getting weird; the closet started emitting shuffles and whispering, the camera began malfunctioning and I gradually felt dizzier as time went on.

I then heard a little kid’s laugh and I bolted upright but regretted it afterwards. “Wha- oh I don’t feel good…” I said clutching my forehead. The furniture around me blurred in my vision, I rubbed my forehead muttering to myself when I felt a cold breeze rush past me. “Crazy stuff…who’s in here with me?” I call out, as I looked down to my camera I saw it was out of tape.

“Great just when I needed it the most….” I sigh getting off the bed and ruffling through the bag of spare tapes and batteries whilst still feeling dizzy. I heard footsteps outside my door, when I went to investigate there was nothing in the hallway – all I could see was the darkness.

“Hello? Is there anyone in this hallway? Do you want to come into my room?” I say to the darkened hallway. I shoved the new tape into the camera and as I turned back into my room I looked up and the bed seemed to have moved since I sat on it. I walked towards it and I had a cold blast of energy hit me and my camera died.

“You’re kidding me…” I mutter “Who drained my camera? I demand you show yourself to me right here, right now, do it!” I yell.

I waited in silence in the dark still holding my drained camera when I remembered the digital recorder in my pocket. I got it out and started recording; “Speak into this red light I’m holding, I can hear your voice later on and play it back to you.” I said holding the recorder in front of me over the bed.

Putting the recorder on the bed I decided to put a fresh battery in my camera and then get ready to go to sleep. “It’s half past one in the morning…I’m going to go to sleep in a few minutes but feel free to speak into this recorder or show yourself to either one of the cameras in the room.” I call out as I put the camera on the table and walked into the bathroom.  

Whilst in the bathroom I kept hearing a child’s laughter coming from my room but when I glanced in I could see nothing but darkness beyond what little light the bathroom lighting gave me. I dismissed it as my imagination and got into bed, just before I settled down to sleep I said to my camera;

“Well, first night here and things are certainly weird – let’s hope some good evidence turns up tonight. G’night guys.” I put the camera, still recording, next to the digital recorder on the bedside table started to drift off to sleep. Just before I fell into a deep slumber I thought I heard someone whispering next to me, I ignored it as I was too tired and still a little dizzy from earlier to care anymore. “Stanley Hotel…you certainly have some weird things going on here…” I mumble turning over and falling asleep finally.


	7. Room 428

**Chapter Seven  
Room 428**

**Aaron’s P.O.V**

As Luna left the room and Nick shortly after her Zak and I sat and talked about technical setups of the cameras and what we were going to do tomorrow night for the actual investigation, he gave me another cup of coffee during this time, I don’t know what I’d do without my coffee.

“How many is that now then Aaron?” Zak asked me as he scribbled some notes down about the camera locations.

“I don’t know anymore, Luna’s saying too many though!” I reply flicking through a hotel guide.

“Well she’s probably not used to someone drinking that much coffee in one day, and knowing what you get like on an investigation; don’t drink that much tomorrow. God I feel like I’m telling some teenager to not drink alcohol on a school night.” Zak chuckled. “Oh by the way, I got you something to use tonight in your room.”

He got up and got a plastic bag and gave it to me. “Use this wisely, young Aaron.” I reached inside and took out a blonde wig, I started laughing at Zak’s face. He seemed so serious about it but was clearly fighting back a laughing fit of his own.

“Dude, what the hell?” I ask between laughs “You expect me to do what with this?”

“I expect you to wear it tonight, after all it was a _woman_ who got kissed, so you need to look the part, and I’m serious Aaron.” He said to me, fighting a smile on his face.

“Why couldn’t you get Luna to do this then?” I asked “You wouldn’t have needed to buy a wig for starters.”

Zak looked away from me, something I said must’ve made an impact on him. “After the DuVade mansion case I don’t want her in that kind of danger again.” He mumbled

“I hardly think there’s a demon here dude, and buy the way – didn’t you tell me earlier that you were gonna call Billy?” I reply

“Oh yeah, thanks dude, I’ll see ya later then.” He acknowledged and walked out towards the front porch of the hotel.

I shoved the wig back into its bag and started browsing the internet on my phone and drinking more coffee when Nick walked back into the room. We spent about three quarters of an hour chatting, I showed him the wig Zak gave me and he just laughed at me.

“Yeah, anyway I’m gonna head to my room, we’ve got an hour before Zak cuts the lights – literally he’s cutting the wires in the power box.” Nick said getting up from his seat.

“He’s allowed to do that? I asked shocked

“I don’t know, but he’s going to. So I’ll see ya tomorrow unless you get scared...haha” He taunted me

“Shut it dude, but seriously if some ghost kisses me I’m out of here!” I call to him as he left. I finish my coffee and started to walk to my room. I just got to the first flight of stairs when the lights went out.

“What the hell?” I look at the time on my phone. It was quarter to nine, Zak had told us they were going off _at_ nine. As if he had heard my thoughts I heard Zak calling me from the front porch area.

“Aaron unlock the door!” He yelled

“I didn’t lock it dude!” I reply stumbling over to it in the darkness, I rattled the handle of the main door as it was meant to be unlocked but obviously it wasn’t. Zak kicked the door from the other side and forced it open.

“What the- why are the lights off?” he asked me

“Uh…you cut them off?” I replied a little confused, “You did right?”

“No…it wasn’t me, I only just got off the phone with Billy…” He mumbled inspecting the door. “Aaron it _wasn’t_ me.” He said loudly “Emphasis on the ‘wasn’t’ dude.”

“Okay I get it!, sheesh calm down. It probably just got stuck.” I said

“Mm…unlikely…” a muffled response came from him. He kept moving the door, closing and opening it trying to recreate the same problem we had. I was getting tired and he was getting cranky.

“I’m going to my room now…don’t stay here too long Zak. You might go crazy…” I remarked before turning to the staircase. I didn’t hear any reply from Zak so I walked up the stairs with the recent activity fresh in my mind. I felt my way down the corridor knowing that my room was at the very end, I then remembered that I left the wig downstairs.

“…nah I don’t need it.” I said to myself after thinking for a second. I opened my room door and found a flashlight then I saw as well as the equipment bag on the bed there was another bag next to it. “I don’t remember having two equipment bags…” I mumble as I take the handheld camera out of the equipment bag and start recording. I open the second bag on the bed and nearly dropped the camera in shock.

“What the frig...I’m so sure I left that downstairs...” I exclaimed. I pointed the camera inside the bag at the wig. “Zak gave me this to wear in this room...” I said out loud. I then realized that the wig was left in the restaurant area when Zak got locked outside.

“Oh my God! Are you kidding me?!” I shouted suddenly when everything made some kind of sense in my mind ”I left this in the restaurant when the power went out, then Zak got locked outside and I went to help him I came straight up to my room after that...” I said out loud to the camera.

 “So this means someone has moved the wig, Nick and Luna have both been in their rooms and I was with Zak the entire time.” I conclude as I point the camera towards myself. “Crazy…”

I put both bags beside the closet, there was no way I was wearing that damn wig even if Zak paid me to. I laid out the camera and digital recorder on the bed as I closed the curtains and latched the main door, I felt a slight breeze in the room but nothing majorly odd.

“Alright you crazy spirits, all I want you to do is make a noise or move something.” I said out loud picking up the camera. “You could show yourself, I’ll accept that also.” I paced around the room with my camera whilst leaving the recorder on the bed. There were no noises – literally. It was silent, there wasn’t even the sound of any wind or outside noise and it made me nervous. Turning the camera towards me is said;

“Man it is _quiet_ , seriously there’s like nothing – just silence. I can’t hear anything not even Nick or Luna down the corridor, it’s freaky…” I picked up the recorder and played back all the audio recorded and there was only one voice different from my own.

“That’s defiantly not me…” I mutter replaying it over and over again, the voice wasn’t audible, it was just above a whisper and God only knows what it was saying. “Okay just to document; there’s a faint whisper at 5:23 on the audio tape guys.” I said to both camera and recorder. I sat on the bed panning the camera around the room, seconds seemed like hours drawn out with nothing happening. Nothing moved, no noises came from anywhere, no weird lights or shadows. It was like the spirits were on holiday.

I pondered about putting the wig on to see if that cowboy would appear – I had said to Nick that if anything _that_ weird happened that I’d be  out of here, but it was so quiet and I was so bored that I was willing to give it a shot. I got off the bed and got the blonde wig out of the closet.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this…” I said to my camera as I put it on my balding head. It itched like hell, and it wasn’t comfortable at all having bits of hair past my ears and over my eyes. “How do you girls put up with this?” I complained straightening out the loose strands of fake hair. I pointed the camera at myself.

“How do I look?” I joked “Maybe Zak has a decent fashion sense after all.” Taking my seat back on the bed I tried to communicate with anything that was around; “So…are there any tall handsome cowboys here?” I asked, it then occurred to me that maybe actually _sounding_ like a girl would help things along so then I tried mimicking Luna;

“Hello? Are you there?” my voice hurt after just saying that small sentence but nonetheless I continued trying not to laugh. “If you are there show yourself or come over here and sit next to me.” There was no response, no noise, no atmosphere change – nothing at all.

I took the wig off half in disgust and half in relief, well it was worth a try, after deciding that it was unlikely anything else would happen whilst I was awake I got changed and settled down to sleep. I put the camera and recorder on the bedside table and just before I went to sleep I said;

“Well there’s absolutely no noise whatsoever so I’m going to bed – maybe something will make its presence known whilst I’m asleep. Goodnight guys.” I rolled over and fell asleep rather quickly, maybe it was because there was no noise to keep me awake…


	8. Room 401

**Chapter eight  
Room 401**

**Zak’s P.O.V**

With both Luna and Nick off starting their individual investigations I took the opportunity to prepare with Aaron the details of tomorrow night’s investigation and what cameras we were going to use. I decided to give him another coffee to keep him from complaining, even if it seemed like he had drunk too many already.

“How many is that now then Aaron?” I asked him, whilst taking down some notes about various camera locations.

“I don’t know anymore, Luna’s saying too many though!” He laughed in reply as he flicked through a hotel guide.

I considered the fact that although she’s from England that maybe her family doesn’t drink tea or coffee a lot and to her it seemed strange. I wonder what she’ll make of Billy then. “Well she’s probably not used to someone drinking that much coffee in one day, and knowing what you get like on an investigation; don’t drink that much tomorrow. God I feel like I’m telling some teenager to not drink alcohol on a school night.” I chuckled. “By the way, I got you something to use in your room tonight.”

I got up and retrieved a plastic bag from beside a pile of cables and gave it to him; “Use this wisely young Aaron.” I said keeping a straight face. He took it out of the bag and started laughing, I fought a fit of laughter off as I was serious about this.

“Dude, what the hell?” He asked between laughs “You except me to do what with this?”

“I expect you to wear it tonight, after all it was a _woman_ who got kissed, so you need to look the part, and I’m serious Aaron.” I told him fighting the urge to smile.

He turned to me and asked; “Why couldn’t you get Luna to do this then? You wouldn’t have needed to buy a wig for starters.”

I glanced away, the last time I put her alone with something it turned ugly. I couldn’t put her in that situation again. “After the DuVade mansion case I don’t want her in that kind of danger again.” I mumbled to him.

“I hardly think there’s a demon here dude, and by the way – didn’t you tell me earlier that you were gonna call Billy?” Aaron reminded me

“Oh yeah, thanks dude, I’ll see you later then.” I acknowledged and made my way out of the main door onto the porch of the hotel. I dialled Billy’s number; a good friend who also doubled as our audio reviewer amongst other things.

When he picked up the phone I heard his cheerful voice which meant he’d had his daily caffeine hit. “Hello?”

“Hey Bill, its Zak.” I replied “How are you doing?”

“Oh I’m fine – better question is; how’s this teenager of an investigator doing?” He asked me

“She’s doing fine, would be better if she hadn’t been partially possessed on her first investigation but she seems to have recovered well.”

“Possessed? Bloody hell…how old is she again?”

“She’s just turned 16, to be honest that mansion is one freaky place so to have that happen isn’t surprising really but it was a shock when it happened to her.” I told him pacing up and down the porch. The wind was starting to pick up a little and it was getting darker. I let Billy ramble on a bit more about some audio I had sent to him from the DuVade mansion investigation before deciding I better cut the lights and get down to business.

“Well Bill, I need to get investigating – thanks as always for reviewing that stuff.”

“No problem dude, but hey – be careful, I think your house has enough spirits and doesn’t need anymore.” He sounded genuinely concerned which was a little weird from Billy who is normally bouncing off the walls due to caffeine overload.

“No sweat – I’ll see you in a few days when we get to Nevada. Bye.” I said ending the call. I walked back towards the door as I tried to open it the door handle seemed to stop turning halfway as if it was locked. I peered through the window; _why was it so dark?_ I saw a shape that looked like Aaron and I pounded on the window attracting his attention.

“Aaron unlock the door!” I yelled. He replied with something but I couldn’t make it out before he too was pulling and yanking the door. By this point I’d had enough and kicked the door in from the other side. “What the- why are the lights off?” I asked him as I stood panting in the dark and gloomy reception area.

“Uh…you cut them off?” Aaron replied a little confused, “You did right?”

“No…it wasn’t me, I only just got off the phone with Billy…” I mumbled turning to inspect the door. “Aaron it _wasn’t_ me.” I then said loudly “Emphasis on the ‘wasn’t’ dude.”

“Okay I get it!, sheesh calm down. It probably just got stuck.” Aaron replied, he was obviously getting tired. I just couldn’t understand how the door got stuck to the degree in which I had to kick it in to open it. “Hmm unlikely...” I mumbled at him pushing the door back and forth experimenting with it.

“I’m going to my room now…don’t stay here too long Zak. You might go crazy…” Aaron remarked as he turned and disappeared into the darkened stairway. I remained at the main door pulling and pushing it back and forth trying to recreate the same effect and with no luck.

Only when I stood up straight again did I notice how dark it was inside the hotel, weird shadows cast from the moonlit windows onto the carpet of the reception. I couldn’t see far in front of my face; I could barely make out the hole in the wall where the stairs were about two feet away. “Well I might as well go and see old man Dunraven.” I mutter cautiously making my way over to the stairs and elevator. I pressed the button for the elevator to come down from the fourth floor but after what seemed like an eternity it still hadn’t shown up, I was getting impatient by this point.

“Seriously? It was working half an hour ago…” I mutter “I guess I’ll have to take the stairs, great.” I made my way up to the fourth floor on the elegant staircase and was now in complete darkness with only a slight glimmer of light from the window at the end of the corridor. I walked along using my phone to check the room numbers, I got to room 401 pretty quickly and unlocked the door.

Once inside my room I knew exactly where everything was and walked quickly to the bed, looking for a flashlight, I found one as well as a digital recorder and a camera. I turned the camera on and panned around the room I saw this face looking straight at me from above the chest of drawers

“Holy shit!” I practically jumped about two feet backwards when I realized it was just an old picture of Lord Dunraven; the owner of the land the hotel stood on before the Stanleys bought it.

“That scared the crap out of me…” I muttered waving the flashlight around the picture. “Are you in here Dunraven? I hear you don’t like people staying here in your room.” I called out as I started rolling on my digital recorder.

“If you are here then I’m afraid you’re going to have to put up with me staying here for the next two days – if you don’t like that you better say so now so I can get a room change.” I had no intentions of moving rooms just for the ghost’s sake, in-fact if the ghost didn’t want me there I’d probably be more inclined to stay just to see what would happen.

I reviewed the recording so far to see if anyone had anything to say to me, I found a few weird creaking noises that I debunked as the building settling but then I heard a definite voice out of the dark obelisk; ‘ _somebody’s coming_ ’

As soon as I heard this with my own ears on playback I heard footsteps coming along the corridor and stopping outside my room. With my flashlight in my pocket and the camera in my right hand I walked slowly towards the main door. I turned the handle, whipped the flashlight out of my pocket and turned it on as the door swung open revealing; nothing. Absolutely nothing, I shut the door quietly making sure not to let it slam and whispered into my camera;

“Well you heard it at the same time I did; ‘somebody’s coming’ and then footsteps leading to my door when there was nothing there. Was it Dunraven? I don’t know but things are only going to get weirder from here probably.”

I decided to just lie on the bed and take in the atmosphere of the room and let things settle down. As I was led there I must’ve fallen asleep as the next thing I know it’s freezing cold and my camera has run out of battery. “Oops…” I mutter as I check the recorder, it was still rolling with about ten minutes of tape left. “Well I don’t know what time it is but changing the batteries in everything would be a good start.” I said getting up off the bed and rummaging through the bag. After putting fresh batteries and tapes in the equipment I checked the time on my phone; 1:37am.

“Okay…Lord Dunraven are you here?” I asked for the second time “You obviously don’t have a problem with me staying here then.” I remark wishing I’d get a response. It suddenly got rather cold in my room, the hairs on my arms stood up and it was quiet, _too_ quiet. I panned around the room and I saw something from the corner of my eye, I spun around and once again; there was nothing. Whatever it was didn’t want to be seen and was having fun playing mind games with me.

“Alright…I’m going to sleep now, I’m going to leave this camera and recorder on the bedside table for you – feel free to talk into either one tonight.” I announce as I climbed into the bed. I spoke into the camera one last time before turning over and falling asleep;

“Hopefully good ol’Dunraven will make an appearance tonight; I’ll see you in the morning guys.”

 


	9. The investigation continues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I wonder just what my train of thought was when I was writing some of this. Alas 15-year-old me certainly had an interesting imagination.

**Chapter nine  
The investigation continues**

 

I woke up to see the white ceiling of the hotel room, after remembering where I was I rolled over to check the camera. Yep it was where I had left it, recorder by its side, both still recording. I got up and changed the batteries and tapes in both when I looked at the clock, it was quarter past eight. I had no idea when or where we were meeting up and I didn’t particularly want to go knocking on Nick’s door asking him these things at this time of the morning. After a brief moment of thought I decided to take a shower whilst I wasn’t paranoid about spirits or anything weird going on. I relocated the camera to point at the bathroom door; that was the closest it was getting to being with me ‘every second’ like Zak told me to do. If anything weird happened in the bathroom then he’ll have to settle for it not being captured on video or audio. I wasn’t going to take it with me whilst I showered, end of.

**~30 minutes later~**

Hot water pounding on my head had never felt better after the past few days I had. As I tied my damp hair into a ponytail I glanced into the mirror and saw that I had dark circles under my eyes. “I guess that’s living on the road for you…” I muttered. I pulled on a pair of jeans and a blue T-shirt and then sat with my camera and recorder on the bed; it was quarter to nine, still a bit too early to go knocking on anybody’s door. Checking my phone I saw I had a text message from Kate, it literally said;

_‘Owls get me happy.”_

I thought about this statement for a few minutes and decided to reply with;

_‘Good to know – I take it you’re happy about this?”_

 

That didn’t surprise me; I knew I’d get a weird text at some point. Especially when I’ve kind of gone missing from school overnight, come to think of it; none of my other friends had bothered to text me, maybe they just heard where I was from Kate and left it at that. Who knows but it won’t stop them from pouncing on me as soon as they see me again. The thought of that made my head hurt, I got up and did a final check of the camera and recorder’s batteries before leaving the room to walk the silent hallways of the hotel.

It didn’t take me long to find one of the guys, as I walked into the restaurant area where most of our equipment was laid out across various tables I saw the familiar coffee drone sitting at a table with his morning caffeine hit. “So Aaron – did anything weird happen last night?” I said pouncing on the back of his chair; he jumped about two feet into the air in surprise which was quite funny.

“Wha- oh it’s you, you scared the shit out of me Luna...” he puffed at me. Before he had a chance to tell me about his night Nick and Zak walked into the dining area, both looking absolutely shattered.

“Tired guys?” I remarked sitting on the chair next to Aaron. “After the closet door stopped opening by itself I slept quite peacefully.” All three of them stared at me as if I was speaking French.

“The closet door opened… _by itself_?” Nick asked still shocked. Zak took the seat opposite me with a serious look on his face. “Okay, what happened?” he bluntly asked.

I shifted in my seat under his curious yet uncomfortable gaze as I started to recall the events that had occurred last night; “Well even before I started looking for activity I noticed that the closet door was open – which it previously hadn’t been. After that there was a feeling that someone was watching me so I asked if there was anyone there and to put it simply; there was a loud noise coming from the closet.” I started fidgeting and not looking at any of them whilst I continued; “So I asked it to make the noise again and instead the door rattled. Disregarding my fear at the time I tried to open it whilst still being sat on the bed – what happened next scared the crap out of me…”

By this time all three of them were listening intently. Zak had dropped his serious and blunt attitude and was on the edge of his seat waiting for me to get to the next part of what happened; “So what happened?” he asked

Still avoiding their gaze I went on explaining my experiences. “The door opened right in front of me and as a result I fell off the bed, it just really startled me…” I mumbled

Aaron gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder which brought me out of my current fascination of the wooden flooring in the dining area. I looked up to see a look in his eyes showing he understood what I was feeling. I looked to Nick who also had a look of understanding, finally I glanced at Zak. He opened his mouth as if to say something but in the end just nodded for me to go on.

“Once I got over that I walked into the bathroom and I heard laughter… but it sounded as if it was coming from the _wall_ between the corridor and the bathroom – not the actual corridor. I didn’t think much of it at first but when I walked back into my room several things happened in a short space of time which all got me more and more paranoid; the first thing  that occurred was the handheld camera froze on me. Whilst trying to unfreeze said camera I asked if whoever was doing this was the one who opened the closet earlier – this led to the second event; the main door shook violently, like someone was trying to get in…” I saw images of the event flashing through my head rapidly to the point of which I couldn’t tell them anymore even though I knew it would be crucial to the investigation.

“Are you okay Luna? Don’t rush yourself – take your time, we have plenty of it.” Zak commented after I had stopped talking and regained my interest of the floor.

“I’m fine, anyway after the door shook the lights went out and whilst I was trying to find the night vision setting the closet door opened once again. I calmed down after it all went quiet for about two minutes and then I asked any children spirits in the room to basically go down to Nick’s room and scare him.” I said fighting the urge to laugh slightly at Nick’s expression of mixed shock and humour. “After that everything died down really – no weird noises, no strange movement, and the only other weird thing that happened was battery drainage.”

Once I had finished telling them what happened, all three of them sat in a collective silence for a few moments digesting the events before Nick spoke; interrupting their thought process.

“So you told some children spirits to come and scare me?” he asked me

“Yeah, well I thought it would make a good way to get them to do something. What child doesn’t want to play a game, especially when they’re specifically told to go scare someone?” I reply.

“Well something was in my room last night – I don’t know who or what it was but it made me feel like I was going to throw up.” Nick stated

“You felt physically sick dude?” Aaron asked shocked, which was becoming a regular occurrence and also slightly annoying.

“Yeah, I don’t know what was going on but one minute I was walking into my room and talking out loud about the poltergeist activity and the next I felt really dizzy and there was definitely something in that room with me.” He explained.

“Care to go into detail?” I ask now curious at what I had caused by a simple ‘game’

“At first I just heard a few weird noises but nothing substantial until I reviewed the recording and caught a voice. It said ‘ _You better start talking_ ’ after that I started feeling dizzy to the point where I had to lie down.”

“Wow…was it clear as day?” Zak queried reaching into one of the equipment bags strewn around the room and grabbing the same recorder.

“You bet, and it was as soon as I played it back that I felt dizzy.” Nick replied pinching the skin between his eyes. “So anyway – I heard weird noises and the camera malfunctioned a few times, once during the night I heard a child’s laughter.”

“No way…any freaking way…” I repeated. “No way, are you serious?”

“Calm down, and yeah I swear I heard a child’s laughter. So the camera needed a new tape and whilst I was replacing the tapes there was footsteps from outside but when I went to look there was nothing there. But the weird thing was as soon as I walked back into the room I felt a cold blast of air and my camera completely died.” He explained “I pretty much demanded whoever drained my camera’s battery to show themselves and nothing happened, so basically I went to sleep after that.”

“Sounds like you had an interesting night there Nick.” Zak commented “I sent you to a room with a levitating bed and you experience children laughing and a whole load of dizziness.”

“Yeah it was crazy dude; I don’t think the bed moved at all to be honest. It slid slightly but other than that it pretty much didn’t move an inch.”

“Well you certainly got something to react. Speaking of which; Aaron did that wig I gave you help at all?” Zak continued

“Dude you will not believe what happened after I got into my room.” Aaron started

“Wait you gave Aaron a wig? Why?”  I interrupted

“To lure out the spirit of that cowboy who kissed the woman on the forehead.” Zak responded “What happened Aaron?”

My attention was drawn back to Aaron sitting with his eyes wide open as he told us what had happened;”I left the bag with said wig inside down here in the restaurant when I went to my room. I opened the door and as well as the equipment bag on the bed there was another bag next to it, when I looked inside I found the wig – now I _knew_ that Nick and you, Luna, were in your rooms and I knew that Zak was by the front door so how that bag got upstairs is a mystery to me.”

We all stare at him wide eyed, “H-How did that wig get from here, in the dining area, up four floors and into a locked room?” I stuttered

“Who knows...we’ll have to check the x-camera to see when exactly it showed up.” Nick replied. “So what happened next?”

“I refused to wear the wig – considering it had magically appeared on the bed – so I just paced the room asking questions and reviewed the audio after nothing happened. On the audio there was a faint whisper but I couldn’t tell what it was saying so I marked it and then just sat on the bed.” Aaron continued “It was really quiet, seriously no noise whatsoever it was kind of freaky so just to see if I could get any response I put on the wig but nothing changed, in the end I just gave up and went to sleep.”

“You had a pretty uneventful night then, where Nick and I had crazy activity filled ones.” I acknowledged. “Come on Zak, I’m dying to know; what happened to you last night?”

“The lights went out by themselves...” He muttered.

I didn’t quite get what he was muttering about, I looked to Nick for answers but he looked as puzzled as I did so we both looked to Aaron and he knew something and wasn’t telling us. In the end Nick bit the bullet; “Didn’t you cut them Zak?”

“Nope. I called Billy and between leaving the building, pacing up and down the porch and me trying to get back in, the lights had gone out. The main door also wouldn’t open I had to kick it in right Aaron?” he replied solemnly

“Yeah, then I left you fiddling with the door and went to my room.” Aaron muttered

Something unsettled me about the way they spoke about this, the tones in their voices made it seem that something else happened last night but I wasn’t about to start an argument.

“So anyway I walked up to my room in the darkness and once inside I basically tell Lord Dunraven that if he doesn’t like me staying in his room that he should make it clear by saying something. I reviewed the tape and got a voice saying; ‘Somebody’s coming’ and as soon as I played it over again I heard footsteps walking along the corridor and stopping outside my room.  Naturally I got up and opened the door and there was nothing there.” Zak recounted “I led on the bed and accidently fell asleep, I woke up and changed the batteries in everything that’s when I started seeing shadows everywhere but whenever I’d point the camera at them there would be nothing there. It was something like two am when I went to sleep properly.”

“You didn’t have much happen either then...” I stated

 “Not anything immediately obvious, we still have to go over all the video footage and audio we recorded overnight. Besides; none of us stayed up until three am which is notorious for being the ‘witching hour’ when a lot of residual activity could’ve taken place.” Zak explained

“So should we get to it then?” Aaron asked “If so then I’ll need coffee.”

“Yeah gather up the tapes and then sit down and review them all.” Zak ordered “I need to go and talk to the cleaning staff and warn them of our camera set up. I’ll meet you in base when I’m done.” He then got up and wondered off leaving Aaron, Nick and I to make our way to base.

“Well I guess we better get going – the last thing we need is a grumpy Zak when he shows up and we haven’t done anything.” Nick sighed “Come on you two let’s go.”  He got up to leave and I followed leaving Aaron at the coffee machine.

“Hey wait for me guys!” Aaron called to us “The coffee‘s not done yet!”

“Maybe you should lay off the coffee then!” I replied from the hallway where Nick and I were stood by the elevator waiting for both it and Aaron to appear. “Nick, how long does it normally take to review all the evidence?” I ask him

“Depends on how much we actually have to listen and watch. Sometimes it’s a few hours, other times it can take up to three days.”

“Three days?! Is that seriously how long it takes sometimes?” I cried

“Yeah it’s a thorough process and you gotta keep focused, so quite often two or three people will listen to the same tape, to have a fresh set of ears and sometimes they’ll each find something different on it.”  Nick explained

“Guys, I got my coffee!” Aaron hollered ambling through the doorway just as the elevator arrived.

“Great timing. Now let’s get to this evidence already before Zak finds us goofing off.” I declared as the doors shut us inside the small elevator.

**~ 4 hours later ~**

I had a few things scribbled down on my pad that Zak gave me, possible voices as well as debunked noises or events. Reviewing the x-camera placed in the ballroom’s footage, all nine hours of it certainly proved Nick’s point about being focused. I leaned back in my chair and glanced around the room known as base. For some reason Zak had picked the room Stephan King stayed in for base which begged the question; why wasn’t there a camera watching base? The guys sat spread amongst laptops, wires, tapes and lots of coffee cups, or at least Aaron was. It seemed so lonely in the room as everyone had their headphones or earphones plugged in and were concentrating, it had been about two hours since one of them had spoken to me last and I was getting bored. I sighed loudly and stretched, I wondered if I could just leave and get some fresh air without any of them noticing?

I got up and walked to the door without making a sound, I hesitated before walking out into the hallway. I decided to take a walk outside the seemly abandoned hotel; it took me two seconds to remember that it was abandoned because it was winter here. Two seconds too late for I had already walked out onto the porch in a sleeveless top and got greeted by a freezing cold blast of wind. I briskly walked back inside and aimlessly wondered the corridors for a few minutes when I could feel someone watching me, I turned around and the elevator doors just closed despite the fact I hadn’t used the elevator so why was it open?

“You’re imagining things again Luna...” I muttered to myself. This was why I had chosen to take a walk; too much focusing on a small screen for three and a half hours. I continued along the corridor and somehow ended up outside the base room again. “Well I might as well get back to work.” I opened the door and all three of the guys quickly looked up like I was an alien.

“Oh Luna – when did you leave? I didn’t hear you.” Aaron asked surprised

“I left about twenty minutes ago, I’m not surprised you guys didn’t notice as you were all glued to your computers.” I replied

“Beside the point – did you hear anyone about?” Zak cut in

“Uh...no...I thought the hotel was closed for the season...” I mumbled

“It is – but we keep hearing footsteps up and down the corridor.” Nick clarified

“Now you mention it...I felt as if someone was watching me downstairs, and the elevator doors shut when I hadn’t even used the elevator.” I said. Zak got up and walked out of the room in silence, I was slightly scared I had somehow offended him.

“If someone’s here then all out evidence could be screwed.” Aaron murmured

“Oh I didn’t think of that...is that why Zak’s just basically stormed out of the room?” I asked

“Yeah – if we can’t use the evidence because someone’s here then he’s going to be mighty pissed off.” Nick replied

Just as I started getting anxious Zak came back into the room and grabbed a handheld camera. “You might wanna see this guys...” he muttered before exiting again.

We all followed him without a word and he took us to the ballroom, there wasn’t anything immediately out of place so I was wondering why Zak had brought us here until he led us to an old door behind the piano.

“Since when has this door been here?” Nick asked

“Exactly – it shouldn’t be.” Zak replied “I called the owner to ask if anyone else should be here and they said no – then they asked me to check something in here when I found the door, they have no idea what it is but they said we can look into it if we want.”

“Well we need to get us some flashlights then – and another camera.” Aaron said as he left to get the necessary items. Zak had already opened the door and was peering into it;

“It looks like a basement of sorts...best wait for those flashlights I guess.” He muttered

“So you’re saying the owners knew nothing about this?” Nick asked also peering into the opening

“Yep pretty much.”

Aaron returned a little out of breath with four flashlights, another camera and a few spare batteries and tapes. We each took a flashlight and one by one we entered the darkness under the Stanley hotel.


	10. Basement exploration

**Chapter ten  
Basement exploration**

 

We all stumbled down a stone staircase we found just inside the door and soon our flashlights were the only light sources we had in the dark empty space of what must’ve been a basement.

“So...it’s pretty dark....” I sigh shining my light around the room

“Yeah, that’s because it’s a basement.” Zak pointed out.

“No shit Sherlock…” I reply sarcastically

“Who?” Aaron asked

“Sherlock Holmes is a fictional British detective – so when people point out obvious things it’s pretty common for a reply to be ‘no shit Sherlock’ as in ‘that’s really obvious’.” I explained “Or at least that’s just one of my habits.”

“Ah…that makes sense…” Aaron replied

“Can we get back to finding out what’s down here guys?” Zak called from somewhere nearby in the darkness.

We split up and went into separate sections of the basement, whilst shining my flashlight around I saw many broken pieces of furniture strewn about the half-furnished rooms. “Why is it only half-furnished?” I muttered to myself. I walked into several different rooms with similar surroundings before I found one room that seemed out of place; it had a fireplace and an old bed sat in one corner.

“Why is there a fireplace in the basement? Why is this the only room with unbroken furniture?” I asked myself out loud. Nick walked through a separate door leading in from a different room and was as surprised as I was about the fireplace.

“Why is there a fireplace here?” he asked me as if I would know

“How the hell am I supposed to know – but this is the only furnished room I’ve seen.” I replied

“Same, all the others have had broken and old furniture in them.” Nick commented

Aaron came through one of the doors and noticed the fireplace, “Why is there a fireplace here?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” Both Nick and I replied. We walked around the room for a while before Zak found us all.

“Why is there a fireplace here?” he asked. Nick and I looked at each other in the dim lighting with raised eyebrows.

“I don’t know Zak – how about I ask the air?” I snapped “Hey air – why is there a fireplace here?”

What happened next was totally unpredicted; first it got very cold in the room and then two of the flashlights died. I shrunk back towards Nick, who had been standing off to my left slightly, whilst trying to get my flashlight working again. We then all heard a loud growl from somewhere around the fireplace.

“I think I may have pissed something off….” I whispered

“I think we all should walk slowly towards the door and find our way out of here..” Nick suggested.

“I’m going to agree with you on that one.” Zak replied “Which way is out?”

“That way.” Both Aaron and Nick said, each pointing at a different door.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…” I muttered

As Zak and Aaron tried to remember where the staircase was Nick and I tried to get our flashlights working again by swapping the batteries around, eventually I threw my flashlight down in disgust and it rolled over towards the fireplace.

“Now you’ve done it.” Nick muttered “It probably won’t work now even if we put new batteries in it.”

“Sorry..” I mumbled in reply. As I got up to fetch the now broken flashlight Zak and Aaron came to an agreement on which door we had to pass through to get out of the basement.

“Right, we go this way.” Zak announced taking off through a doorway with Nick and Aaron in pursuit. I scrambled to pick up the flashlight and follow them before I got left in the dark and creepy basement.

After taking many twists and turns in what seemed like a maze of rooms we reached the stone staircase leading to the ballroom. It turns out we had been in the basement for two hours and now we were all covered from head to toe in dust, which annoyed me greatly.

“Well now we know where the door goes…and that there’s _something_ down there.” I sighed slumping to the ground next to the piano.

“I think we need to see if the camera audio picked up that growl.” Aaron commented turning his camera over in his hands.

“Same, we’ll get Billy to look into it. I’ll call the owner and tell them what we found.” Zak replied “Just to clarify; this basement is off-limits to everyone okay? No-one goes down there at all, got it?”

“Aye captain…” I sighed

“Since when has Zak been a captain?” Nick asked laughing slightly

“Never mind, it’s just something I say. Are we going back to reviewing evidence now then?” I replied

“Yeah, you can take a break if it’s too much for you.” Zak said to me as we all started walking back to the base.

“Nah, it’s fine – just gets a little boring after a while.” I assured him

“Alright, but take a break as soon as you stop focusing.” Zak replied opening the door of base.

**~ 3 hours later- 6:15pm~**

I don’t know why I refused to take a break when Zak offered, I had been so bored the past three hours it was unbelievable, it didn’t help that I hadn’t got a single hit on either the visual or audio evidence from the ballroom whilst every 15 minutes or so one of the guys would jump up saying; ‘Oh my God listen to this!’ then we’d all crowd around the computer and once we had determined what they had caught the whole process of getting focused started again. How they did this for days on end deeply puzzled me. I had finally finished watching and listening to all the evidence collected from the ballroom and sat back in my chair sighing.

“So did you get anything?” Aaron asked me without looking up.

“Not really, a few weird specks floating around but they looked like dust or bugs rather than orbs.” I replied rubbing my eyes.

All of a sudden Zak started laughing which made us all turn and look at him. “Sorry guys, I’m just watching Luna’s camera from yesterday evening.” He explained in between fits of laughter.

“Oh my days, what part are you laughing at?” I asked panicked

“When you fell off the bed after the closet door opened.” Zak replied

I felt my cheeks burning with embarrassment as I remembered the occurrence. “Ah...I see...”

“Well I’m done reviewing the footage from both Aaron’s and Zak’s room.” Nick announced

“I’m done with the footage from your room Nick and the audio from the basement, other than the growl we all heard it was silent.” Aaron also announced.

“It’s pretty obvious that Zak isn’t done yet – I fell off the bed way before things started getting creepy.” I commented. It suddenly dawned on me that we should be investigating the actual hotel tonight and it was already getting dark. “Aren’t we meant to be investigating tonight?” I asked them.

Nick and Aaron looked at each other before turning to Zak who had since put his headphones on and couldn’t hear anything. “Zak?” Nick asked nudging his arm.

“Huh? What?” Zak said a little bewildered

“It’s quarter past six, we need to set up for the investigation.”

“Oh, well we need new tapes in all the handheld cameras, flashlights and digital recorders then the lights will need to be cut.”

“Uh...unless we have a spare flashlight I will have no way to see if there’s an emergency...so...you need to do something about that...” I mumble

“Oh yeah..,you _had_ our spare flashlight. I guess you’ll have to stay with someone rather than investigating on your own.” Aaron replied

“Fine, Nick; she can go with you.” Zak barked before turning back to the computer screen.

“Alright.” Nick replied “So I suppose we better sort out these cameras and recorders.

We emptied all the equipment bags from the night before and replaced the dead batteries with new ones and put in new tapes into the cameras, we also went along to each of our rooms and checked the static night vision cameras were still on and working properly. When we got back to base Zak had finished reviewing the footage and was talking with Aaron.

“So don’t freak out man, it’ll make it want to do more.” Zak said as Nick and I walked through the door.

“Make what want to do more?” I ask

“Nothing, don’t worry. Is everything ready?”

“Yeah, we just need to cut the lights.” Nick said. As soon as he said that the lights went out.

“Okay...I’m guessing that wasn’t planned...” I muttered “What time is it?”

“Half seven. Why have the lights gone out?” Nick replied

“How the hell am I supposed to know?” Zak shouted before grabbing a camera and a recorder then walking out of base.

“Somebody’s on his man-period...” I said

“Agreed.” Aaron replied “So who’s going where tonight then? I’m heading to the ballroom.”

“How about us three all go to the ballroom and leave Zak to his own devices?” Nick suggested

“I like that idea. Zak seems a lil’ angry at the moment.” I chimed in

Nick, Aaron and myself went down to the ballroom and began investigating. Apparently Freelan O’Stanley’s wife could be heard playing the piano, it was also where the door to the creepy basement was.

“So...if there’s anyone here come towards us, my name’s Nick, this is Luna and Aaron. We don’t want to harm you we just want to communicate.” Nick called out.

It remained quiet for a while before we heard light thuds coming from the opposite end of the ballroom. “Hello? Is someone there?” I asked the darkness around me. After no response we brushed it off as the hotel settling until we heard the old door to the basement swing open with a loud creak.

“...What the fuck was that?” I gasped rooted to the spot in terror.

“It was the basement door.” Aaron whispered. He turned on his flashlight and made his way over to me and tugged me slightly to follow him over to where Nick was standing, fascinated with the now open door.

“Who’s down there?” Nick shouted down. “Come up here and show yourself! Or are you too scared?”  He handed his camera to me and started down the stairs. I wasn’t sure what was going on anymore.

“Didn’t Zak say the basement was off limits?” I mumbled to Aaron.

“Yeah, but now Nick’s curious so you might as well let him do whatever so we can move on, you don’t have to go down if you don’t want to, I’m certainly not.” Aaron replied.

I glanced into the screen of the camera and I could see Nick at the bottom of the stairs looking into the darkness surrounding him. He looked around before disappearing further into the basement, my instinct was to follow him to make sure he didn’t get lost but then I remembered how terrified I was when I heard the growl earlier and how much I dreaded going back down there.

“Where is he?” Aaron asked bringing me out of my thoughts.

“I don’t know, he’s walked away from the bottom of the staircase.” I replied “I don’t wanna go down there...not after that growl earlier.”

“Okay, I guess we’ll just wait here then, if he needs us he’ll start yelling. Trust me on that one.” He commented whilst walking away slightly. I was reluctant to leave the door unguarded incase Nick _did_ need us but I didn’t want to be standing there for hours waiting.

I followed Aaron around the piano, still holding the camera. “Hey where did Zak go?” I asked

“Who knows, he’ll show up eventually.” Aaron replied panning the room with his camera.

“...You don’t think he could be in the basement do you?”

He stopped and looked at me as if I just told him I was a freak of nature. “You might be on to something there...I would call him but we turn our phones off during investigations to-”

“Prevent electromagnetic interference, I know but surely there’s some way of getting hold of him?” I finished

“I could go back to base and check the static cameras but what if Nick needs help?”

“Oh I’ll stay here, just give me a flashlight and I’ll be fine.” I assured him “Of course that would mean that you’d have to find your way up two flights of stairs in the dark...”

“Don’t worry about it – but are you sure you wanna stay here? If Nick starts yelling he’ll expect us to come running.” Aaron warned me.

“I’ll just have to face my fears then won’t I?” I smugly replied “Now hurry up – Zak could be going crazy and we won’t know about it.”

“Alright mini-Zak!” Aaron chuckled as he handed me his flashlight and walked off into the darkness.

I found my way back to the basement door and sat down next to it with camera in one hand and my flashlight sat next to me. I turned the camera towards me and explained the current situation;

“Basically; Zak’s stormed off somewhere and no-one knows where he is, so Nick, Aaron and I decided to investigate the ballroom when the door the forbidden basement  opened by itself. Earlier today we were all down there and heard a loud growl and two of our flashlights died – one when I threw it at the floor in disgust after it stopped working and the other from battery drainage.” I heard shuffling from the other-side of the ballroom but I ignored it and continued; “Nick is currently in the basement by himself and I’m only going in there if he starts yelling for help. Aaron’s walking back to base to try and find Zak on the static cameras so I’m sat here in a dark ballroom next to the open door of a creepy basement. Life couldn’t get much better than this I guess.”

I then heard a moan from a few feet in front of me before a loud thud from the basement followed by Nick’s quiet voice; “Guys we gotta get out of here...” I swivelled around and saw him climbing up the steps on his hands and knees, covered in dust once more and bewildered.

“What happened?” I asked

“That basement reminds me too much of Bobby Mackey’s...” he mumbled. At that name being mentioned I knew that we needed to find Zak and get away from here.

 


	11. A convenient delay

**Chapter Eleven  
A convienient delay**

 

I sat on the floor in front of Nick, he was still bewildered and adamant that we needed to get out of the hotel. Aaron still hadn’t returned and we had no idea where Zak was. Things were getting creepier by the minute as we sat at the top of the basement stairs.

“W-What did you mean when you said this basements reminds you of Bobby Mackey’s?” I asked quietly.

“Things down there just don’t feel right at all…” he muttered “Something evil is down there…”

“Are you sure it’s _evil_?” I whispered trying not to attract the supposed spirits’ attention.

“Whatever it is; it’s pretty dark if nothing else, I’m not going back into the basement – we need to get out of this hotel. Because we’ve opened the basement up we’ve released something into the ballroom if not the entire hotel.” Nick replied quietly

I nodded and said nothing; could my outburst about the fireplace have caused this? I wanted to ask him this but he looked tired and stressed about this. We sat in silence waiting for Aaron to return from base with news of where Zak was – or wasn’t. It seemed to drag for an eternity before we were both snapped out of our thoughts by a lot creek from the main door of the room.

“Aaron?” I called out. “Zak? Is that you?”

A familiar shape came towards us; it was Aaron panting for some reason. “Oh God I’m so glad I found you two, Zak’s gone crazy.” He puffed as he leant against the wall “Are you both alright?”

“Aaron. There’s something bad in that basement – it reminds me of Mackey’s. We need to get the hell out of here or get it cleansed, but I don’t know how that’s going to happen as we’re in the middle of nowhere.” Nick replied in a monotone voice

“Well Zak’s currently not responding to anything I say to him – he’s just sat on the floor in a hallway staring at the wall, every time I try to help him up he is really cold and then pulls away from me.” Aaron replied

“Maybe…it’s the thing that was in the basement affecting Zak” I mumbled.

“Don’t even joke about it…” Nick commented

“Did I say I was joking about it?” I snapped. “Well shouldn’t we go and attempt to help him then?”

Aaron looked at Nick who was slumped against the wall staring into the distance, it was pretty obvious that if someone didn’t do something that we’d remain next to the never-ending basement for the rest of the night and not get anywhere.

“Well why are we sitting around then? Zak’s obviously not himself and this isn’t helping!” I said loudly.

“Yeah, come on Nick we need to find Zak.” Aaron agreed as he stood up straight and started walking away with me following him, Nick slowly got off the floor and followed us out of the ballroom. We walked for a while in near pitch black darkness up and down flights of stairs and along corridors before Aaron stopped and stared at the floor;

“He _was_ sat there...but he must’ve moved...” Aaron muttered. I looked behind me to see that Nick was in a daze again so I lightly poked him in the shoulder bringing him out of said daze;

“huh? Where’s Zak?” He asked

“Have you not been paying attention?” I asked him “Zak’s walked off somewhere and you had some crazy shit happen in the basement which you won’t tell me about!” I said getting more and more hysterical.

“Calm down, sheesh...” Nick mumbled “I don’t remember what happened - the last thing I remember is going into the basement, after that it’s all blur...”

“Wait...so you don’t remember anything about what happened?” Aaron asked

“I remember little noises and feelings but nothing more than that – but I know something happened, I just don’t know what.”

We heard something moving further down the corridor and Nick took off after it. _“what the hell is he doing?”_ I thought as I ran after him. I rounded the corner with Aaron somewhat panting a few paces behind me when I saw Nick stood face to face with Zak...who was holding an axe.

_Oh dear God what the hell is happening?_ I steadied my breathing before cautiously making my way towards the silent duo. “Nick? Zak?” I called out. Zak’s grip tightened around the axe, something wasn’t right here. Nick backed away slowly from the axe-wielding Zak and simply said sternly; “Put it down.”

Zak’s gaze had followed Nick and had darted back and forth between Nick and me, then to Aaron as he came around the corner and practically fell over from shock. “Zak what the hell are you doing wielding an axe in such a manner?” he gasped

As soon as everything seemed to have kicked off, things returned to normal. Zak looked puzzled at the axe in his hands and then to the three of us; all pretty bewildered, or at least I was. “What the...” I started before Zak cut in.

“Okay, I get it. End the investigation guys, we’re leaving when it’s daylight.” He said before turning and walking to his room.

Aaron and Nick looked at each other before they too walked off to their rooms with the only flashlight that worked other than my own. I was left standing in the empty corridor with a small beam of light coming from my flashlight. I was so confused there wasn’t even a word to describe it. I walked into my room and didn’t even bother changing, I got into bed and stared into the darkness above me. _What the hell was going on?_

**~7:15 am~**

I woke up to a series of loud knocks from my door, I glanced to the window and sure enough the sun had risen so it must be one of the guys ordering me to wake up and be ready in seconds. I got out of bed and scraped my hair into a ponytail before opening the door to Aaron. “Morning Aaron.” I said trying to be cheerful whilst returning to collect my stuff and dismantle the static camera.

“Hey, so we’re leaving in about half an hour – and we’re going to Nevada and then tomorrow you fly home.” He informed me also attempting to be cheerful

“Yeah, what a time I’ve had mind! Crazy, my friend won’t believe what happened. Ah...so how are Zak and Nick?” I reply substantially happier

“Nick is fine as far as I know, and Zak is adamant that he’s driving from here to Nevada. So...you might wanna write your will before you leave.” He joked helping me dismantle the camera tripod.

I laughed “Is he really that bad?”

“Well normally no, but I think we’re in agreement that he is not normal today – well not after last night.”

We carried the stuff down to the reception where Nick was counting bags by the looks of things, Aaron and I put the remaining equipment bags next to the door when Zak came literally bouncing in to the hotel.

“Hey guys!” He shouted “Nice night?”

_Oh my God what the hell is wrong with him?_ I looked at him like he had a huge spider on his head and then I couldn’t stop laughing at the thought.

“What are you laughing at?” He asked invading my personal space a little too much.

“The thought of you with a spider on your head.” I bluntly replied before falling into a fit of laughter again. Aaron and Nick also couldn’t help laughing, pretty soon all four of us were laughing for no apparent reason.

“Right well we better get the van loaded.” Aaron said after about ten minutes of stop-start laughter.

We loaded the van and against Aaron’s wishes Zak ended up driving us away from the crazy Stanley hotel. I think we’d all agree that the hotel had many more surprises in store for its guests.

“So Zak what happened last night dude?” Nick asked after we had sat in silence for a while.

“Uh...I can’t quite remember...someone gave me the axe and then the rest...is a blur...” he replied a little too cheerily from the driving seat.

I looked at Nick in the back seat with a raised eyebrow. “So...you don’t know who gave you the axe then?” I asked Zak

“Nope. Can’t remember, it was dark and I had no flashlight how was I supposed to know even if I could remember?” he answered turning onto a highway.

None of what happened last night seemed to make sense, the basement and all its activity, Nick acting weird, Zak being ‘given’ an axe by someone and the lights going off randomly each night all seemed to be such crazy things, it’s hard to believe that it all happened. I leant against the window listening absent-mindedly to the conversation between the guys about what we were apparently doing in Nevada in a few hours. Despite the crazy night we all had, I didn’t want to leave yet, I was having one of the best times of my life with these guys and to think that I was flying home tomorrow was unbearable.

“Say Luna you’ve been pretty quite the past half an hour, you okay?” Aaron called from the front seat.

“Yeah, just tired, that and I don’t want to go home...” I mumbled

“We wish you could stay with us but unfortunately I think your school might be more than a little upset if you stayed with us for another week or something.” Nick replied playfully hitting my shoulder.

“Yeah I guess so.” I sighed and stared out of the window at the mountainous skyline rolling by.

A few hours went by and we passed through the state line going from Utah into Nevada and we had just arrived in Las Vegas and it was around mid-day. We stopped outside an ‘in-and-out’ burger joint and parked, Zak turned around in his seat and asked us all what we’d like to eat.

“The usual.” Both Nick and Aaron said before turning to me.

“Oh...I’ll just have some fries or something...I’m not that hungry.”  I muttered

Zak looked a little put out but walked into the restaurant to get our food leaving me with now a curious Nick and Aaron; “Hey what’s up with you?” Nick asked poking me in the shoulder.

“I don’t want to go home...simple really.” I replied

“Well you have to so you might as well make the last day with us fun and memorable rather than trying to escape reality.” Aaron pointed out

“hmm...I guess you’re right...but...never mind.”

“What?” Nick asked

“Well after tomorrow I won’t see you guys again, and it’ll be a shame as we’ve spent a lot of time together and you guys are like brothers to me now.” I explained to them

They looked at each other in silence and then Zak came back with our food, breaking the awkward moment. “So guys what’s the plan now then?” he asked

“I thought we were meeting Billy somewhere?” Aaron asked

“Yeah, but he’s had something come up so he’ll be able to meet us in the airport tomorrow just before Luna’s flight out.” Zak replied digging into whatever greasy food he had just bought.

I gradually ate my fries still in thought about how I was going to return to the boring life I had back in England. When we had all finished Zak drove us to a small park-like place in the middle of a suburb. “Why are we here?” I asked rather bluntly

“Well there’s nothing else to do so I thought we could just chill here in the park, forget all our worries. Sound good to you guys?” Zak explained turning around to face me and Nick.

“Yeah, sounds like fun!” Aaron exclaimed getting out of the van, Nick and I quickly followed with Zak locking up the van. The park itself was quite deserted, only a few dog walkers were around. Perhaps the fact that it’s the middle of winter here put a few people off of coming outside. Nonetheless we all sat on a freezing cold bench and the guys began talking about their next lockdown.

“So where is it next?” Aaron asked rubbing his hands together in an attempt to warm them up.

“Preston Castle, California. We’re going back to see Anna Corbin.” Zak replied

“Well, you guys are anyway.” I mumbled

“Apparently it’s going snowing tonight in England, how chaotic do you think the country will get?” Nick commented

“Well when we had about ten centimetres and everyone went crazy so who knows what’ll happen this time.” I replied.

“Wow...I mean wow, ten centimetres? Everyone went crazy? What the hell...” Zak said

“Yeah, schools closed, roads were blocked, and airports were hit hard too. We’re not used to it.” I explained

“Even so, it’s a little crazy. Do you think your flight will be alright?” Aaron asked

“Probably..” Just then I got a call on my cell phone. “Hello?”

“ _Hello, this is Virgin Atlantic calling about your flight from Las Vegas to London tomorrow? Due to hazardous weather conditions we are unable to fly you out, we hope this isn’t an inconvenience._ ” A shrill female voice came from my phone

Well I’ll be damned...” I muttered. “When will the next available flight be?”

“ _If you book now it’ll be two days from now; Friday, however you’ll need to book in the next five minutes or else the seat will be offered to someone else._ ”

“Guys, my flights been cancelled, and the only available flight is Friday at the earliest.” I said to the curious eyes around me. “But I have to book within the next five minutes...I didn’t book the flight here so what do I do?”

“I’ll call the travel channel, as they were the ones who actually paid for you to get here and they’ll sort it out. No sweat, tell the person at Virgin Atlantic that it’s being sorted by a private company.” Zak replied walking off towards the van

I looked at my phone as if it was a mutant before talking to the busy-body woman on the other end; “Uh..hey my return flight is being sorted out by a private company so don’t bother holding that seat for me.” I rambled off to her before ending the call.

Before I had a chance to gather my thoughts Zak came back and announced; “Well you’re coming to Preston Castle with us! You’re flight home is next Wednesday, providing the snow is gone by then.”

“That was it? Was it that easy to reschedule it?” Aaron asked shocked

“Yeah, well we better call Billy then, shall we find a hotel for Luna?” Zak responded “Or is she staying with one of us?”

“Well you have the space Zak so it’d probably ideal for her to stay with you...” Nick pointed out.

Zak seemed to consider this before agreeing; “Yeah okay, Luna are you okay with this?”

“Yeah sure.” I replied. It wasn’t until afterwards that I remembered that Zak actually had a dungeon in his house. _Oh my God where have I gotten myself into?!_ I thought as we all piled into the van.


	12. So I'm staying in a dungeon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That moment when I realise that every chapter after this has been typed with double spaces between paragraphs and now I have to put them all back to single spaces...  
> 15-year-old me how could you?

  
Chapter twelve  
So I’m staying in a dungeon…

 

We dropped Nick and Aaron off somewhere nearby, I can only assume we had dropped them off at one of their houses, before Zak and I arrived at his house. It was smaller than I thought it would be, then again he was living on his own. There was an open plan kitchen-diner with an archway leading to his living room, a staircase led up to I can only assume was the bedroom and bathroom. As I walked into the living-room I took note of the couch that I’d be sleeping on tonight sat up against the wall facing the TV and the large window giving a view of the trees behind the house. I looked around the room and saw an old door in the corner of the room.

“I’m guessing that’s where the dungeon is…” I said out loud

“Yep, it’s best to ignore anything that starts making noises from there.”  Zak said putting my bag down by the couch before returning out to the van.

Curiosity was mounting inside of me, I wanted to explore the dungeon and its creepy spirits but I was also cautious of it – I didn’t want anything following me anywhere, especially anything out of Zak’s basement. I walked up to the door and pressed my ear against it, the door was cold and a cold breeze was coming through the cracks, there didn’t seem to be anything weird about it so far…

“What are you doing?” I heard a voice say. I was so startled that I jumped about a foot in the air in surprise.

“OHMYGOD!” I yelled nearly falling backwards over the couch. I looked around to see Zak laughing at me in the archway.

“You’re certainly something else Luna…” he said shaking his head. “Are you perhaps curious about the dungeon?”

“Well…yeah, I am really…I’ve heard a lot about it and I just…” I stuttered not being able to finish my sentence. “I was just…”

He walked past me and unlocked the door to the infamous dungeon. “Well do you wanna have a look? Just don’t ask any questions to anything in here, they generally don’t like visitors.” He asked gesturing to the dark space just inside the door.

I walked through the door and was greeted by a very gothic feel, red lighting illuminated many spider webs hanging from the ceiling and a pile of skulls on a table, a skeleton was hanging from the ceiling in a cage like a prisoner. The air was cold and the lights made me feel disorientated. I sat on a gothic throne placed in the middle of the room and took in the enclosed feel of the dungeon.

“So what do you think?” Zak asked pacing around the room.

“It’s really…dark…I like it.” I replied looking around at the spooky décor. “It has a very gothic feel to it, it suites you Zak.”

“Thanks, it may seem cool now but if you were to stay here overnight then you’d discover some interesting spirits, some more friendly than others.” He said lighting a candle next to the skulls and then sitting on the floor next to the chair.

“I thought you always said that spirits can manifest and communicate during the day too?”

“Yeah but obviously it’s more noticeable at night when it’s quiet...and dark, it’s when we’re at our weakest as we are without our sight that things _seem_ to pick up but actually it’s always there, well the residual activity is.” He explained

I could see where he was coming from; spirits are often communicating throughout the day but until we are stranded without one of our main sensory organs we don’t notice, it’s literally a case of a silent hunter when that happens. But that’s the whole thrill of being in a supposedly haunted location; not knowing where the next piece of evidence will come from.

“One question; where’s that chill in the air coming from?” I asked rubbing my bare arms.

“What chill?” Zak replied

“The cold blast of air I felt coming through the cracks in the door and then felt as I entered the room which hasn’t let off since.”

“...Nope can’t feel anything.” He said waving his arm around in the air.

“Oh...okay, it’s probably just me going crazy...or being psychosomatic.” I acknowledged

“Psycho- what?” Zak repeated loudly

“Psychosomatic: my emotional or mental state causing my body to react in weird ways such as this.” I explained “For example we were talking about being without sight and relying on our other senses in a haunted location, my brain processed the emotions of being there in the moment and reacted in the ‘real world’.”

“Ah I see. Well that’s not beyond the bounds of possibility – most claims of activity are tricks of the mind.”

“Yeah, especially when the person experiencing the activity isn’t used to it; as in they’ve not had anything like it happen before.” I point out. “I mean not _everyone_ can be a sensitive can they Zak?”

“Ah true, but then again I’ve been to hundreds of haunted locations so my body has adapted to picking up strange occurrences.” He chuckled

We sat in the dungeon talking about Zak’s various experiences during lockdowns for what was left of the afternoon, I was becoming more comfortable in the enclosed space and I couldn’t believe that there were any ‘unfriendly’ spirits in here…

“So when are meeting Billy tomorrow?” I asked bringing my knees up under my chin.

“Hmm good question, I haven’t told him that your flight’s been cancelled yet. I’ll go and call him, will you be alright here by yourself for five minutes? The spirits drain the battery of my phone in here and there’s crappy signal as well.” Zak replied

“Yeah I’ll be fine, tell him I said hi.” I replied

“Will do.” Zak said as he got up and walked out of the dungeon leaving me sat in the dimly lit space. It was quiet for a while and the only thing I could hear was Zak’s muffled talking in the living room. I glanced around at the gothic decor again – something about the dangling skeleton bothered me but I wasn’t sure why, it just seemed to be staring at me, despite the fact it didn’t have any eyes. I sat staring at it expecting something to happen if I didn’t keep an eye on it, what was it about it that made it so...freaky? I stood up and walked underneath it, it was weird to think it was hanging by a chain just above my head with nothing else supporting it and that at any moment it could randomly fall onto me.

As I took a few steps backwards to continue studying the hanging skeleton I felt the cold air move around me as if someone was pacing behind me, however I could still hear Zak’s muffled voice talking on the phone in the other room meaning it couldn’t have been him. I nervously looked around me hoping it was just my imagination and I couldn’t help but notice that the cage with the skeleton was spinning slowly as if it was caught in a breeze but as there are no windows in the dungeon and no air vents it would seem unlikely that it was a natural occurrence, as well as that the door is closed so only a small breeze could come through and it wouldn’t be enough to make a steel cage spin for an extended length of time.

Who knows how long I was stood staring at it but eventually Zak came back in and was confused as to why I was looking at the ceiling like a zombie. “Luna? Are you okay?” he asked waving his hand in front of my face.

“Yeah…just watching the cage spinning…still spinning…” I mumbled in reply

“What are you talking about?” he asked prodding my shoulder

“The cage…” I said pointing to it “It was spinning but there was no wind.”

“Okay…and how long ago was that?” he questioned me walking below it and lightly pushing it.

“Just after you left, I’ve been watching it since….that skeleton is creepy.” I replied more or less feeling back to normal but the overall experience bothered me still.

He inspected the surrounding area and pushed the cage back and forth a few times before standing with his hands folded across his chest. “It hasn’t done anything like this before in my presence and no-one else has experienced it so it’s a first for me, however it doesn’t seem to be doing it anymore.”

“Hmm…yeah.” I muttered “So what’s the plan for tomorrow?” I asked changing the subject

“Oh yeah we’re going to collect Nick and Aaron before meeting up with Billy to do some evidence review from the Stanley hotel investigation. Hopefully with four of us it won’t get so boring – as I’m sure you found it the other day.” He answered

“I wonder what time it is…” I mumbled stretching and stifling a yawn.

“It’s about seven-ish, you want something to eat?” he commented returning to the living room.

“Uh…I guess so..” I said following him out of the weird dungeon and into the open plan kitchen-diner area.

“What do you want?” he asked leaning on a kitchen counter positioned opposite the refrigerator and oven..

“You got any crisps?”

“What the hell are crisps?” he demanded looking like he was about to burst into laughter.

“You know…crisps?” I repeated “OH that’s the English name…what would you call them here in America? Potato chips?”

“Oh potato chips! Why didn’t you say so before?” he announced “And no we don’t.”

“…okay, uh…what about fruit?” I said fighting back a laugh

“I don’t generally keep fresh food in the house when I’m travelling but I’ll check anyway.” He turned around and went searching through the refrigerator and all the cupboards of the kitchen. “Ah I found some!” he cried bringing a small fruit bowl out of a cupboard, in it were a few apples, pears and the odd orange. I took one of the apples and bit into it, it was quite hard but either way; it was food, Zak took a pear and bit into it. “I don’t know how long these have been here though…” he said with a mouth full of fruit.

“It’s okay, if I die of food poisoning you’ll know not to eat the rest.” I replied taking another bite out of the crimson apple.

“That’s one way to look at your death I suppose…” he replied slowly.

We finished our fruit and decided to sit in the living room for the rest of the evening, we sat and talked about my plans for college after the summer break and I asked him about the upcoming episodes of Ghost Adventures and locations.

“I’m thinking of going back to the old Washoe club and possibly the Mizpah hotel but I’ll have to talk to Aaron and Nick first before making any decisions.” He told me “Anyway, we need to get a decent amount of sleep for evidence analysis tomorrow, are you alright sleeping here on the sofa?”

“Yeah I’ll be fine.” I replied

“Great, I’ll go and get you some blankets and a pillow then, it’s been a while since someone last slept here, I think Nick was the last to stay here – although he did spend about three hours doing an evp session in the dungeon because he couldn’t sleep.”

“Well that doesn’t surprise me…” I commented “Seems like something he would do.”

Zak disappeared off towards the hallway and came back a few minutes later with a pillow and three blankets. “Here ya go. You’ll need to stay warm tonight, it gets pretty cold around here.”

“Thanks, does this mean you’re going to bed now?” I asked wrapping the blankets around me on the sofa.

“Yeah it’s about half nine so I’m gonna hit the deck as it were. See you in the morning.”

“See ya..”

He walked out of the room and I heard him walk up the stairs. I switched the main light off before settling down to sleep, throughout the night I kept getting woken up by a voice that seemed to whisper directly in my ear, the annoying thing was that I couldn’t hear it clear enough to understand what was being said and even if I did understand I didn’t remember anything when I woke up the next morning to sunlight streaking through the window.

I sat up and pulled the blankets aside, I looked around the room and noticed the door to the dungeon was open. “Is there something about me that makes doors open on their own?!” I demanded.

“Now what’s going on?” Zak said as he wandered through the door.

“Oh nothing just-” I started before turning around and seeing him wearing only a pair of jogging bottoms. His short dark hair was stuck up in odd places, he stretched his muscular arms and I couldn’t help noticing the tattoo of a Celtic cross on his arm that bulged whenever he moved.

“Luna? What’s happening?” He asked bringing me out of my rambling thoughts.

“The door was open...when I woke up…” I replied still staring at his bare chest.

He walked past me and closed the door and locked it. Whilst he was facing the other way I saw his tattoo that was inspired by the hellish night at Poveglia Island – the ‘angel of death’ could be a good name for a skeleton in a white robe with draconic wings.

“Can I help you with something?” he asked smirking, he knew exactly why I was staring.

“Uh…no, I’m fine – what time is it?” I mumbled in reply

“Half eight. Nick and Aaron will be here in an hour and then we’re going to meet Billy at the GAC office.” He said still smirking at me.

“I see, well I’m going to get changed then.” I announced. I picked up my bag and made my way to the bathroom and changed into some clean clothing. When I got back to the living room Zak had put a shirt on, much to my dismay, and was eating another apple.

“You alright?” he said between bites.

“Yeah, I’m actually awake now rather than in a daze thanks to a weird voice..” I replied

“Huh? Voice?” he asked

“Yeah something was whispering to me all night and I hardly got any sleep thanks to it.” I explained

“What did it say?”

“I don’t know, it was on-going throughout the night, whatever it was it was repeating it over and over again and I couldn’t tell what it was saying.”

We were interrupted by a knock at the door, Zak went to answer it and came back followed by Nick and Aaron all laughing and shoving each other. _Typical boys_ I thought.

“I thought you were arriving in like half an hour.” I remarked looking at the clock which proclaimed that the time was nine o’clock.

“Yeah but we were running early…by 30 minutes.” Aaron answered before sniggering.

“We hear you’ve seen Zak’s tattoos, what do you think of them?” Nick asked

I felt my cheeks burning with embarrassment. “I…uh…er..” I stuttered “I think they suit him…and..Uh…yeah.”

They all looked at each other with raised eyebrows. “Is that all?” Aaron replied

“I think they…er…look good on him…” I said getting more and more flustered.

“OKAY, we need to get the van packed.” Zak said loudly, breaking the awkward silence.

I need to learn to keep my mouth shut, or at least control what comes out of it. I practically threw my bag in the back of the van and sat in the seat with my arms folded and not saying a word to any of them. Zak took the driver’s seat with Aaron sat next to him and Nick sat in the back seat next to me.

“So what evidence are we analysing?” Aaron asked the silent vehicle.

“The stuff we got at the Stanley hotel and I’m going to get Bill to look at a few things we got at the DuVade mansion.” Zak replied “By the way guys, we’re picking Billy up on the way to the office, meaning Luna; as you’re the smallest you can sit in the middle with Nick and Aaron sitting either side and Bill will sit in the front.”

“Oh great I get stuck in a cramped space, no offence guys.” I complained.

“Don’t worry about it, the office isn’t that far from…uh..where are we picking Billy up from?” Nick asked

“About half an hour from the office.” Zak replied

“…oh…nevermind then Luna.” Nick laughed

We sat in silence more-less all the way to a Starbucks where a guy wearing a beanie hat stood outside the door drinking out of a huge coffee cup with a rucksack beside him on the ground. Zak got out the car and greeted him with open arms, the two of them then walked back to the van, I moved over to the middle seat to make room for Aaron but as Aaron got out of the passenger’s seat the guy who must be Billy shouted out to him; “Don’t worry about moving Aaron, I’ll sit in the back with Nick and the young lady.”

 _Young lady?! What the hell was this guy drinking out of that coffee cup? The only person who called me a ‘young lady’ was my grandfather._ My inner-monologue was screaming as Billy sat next to me in the cramped back seat of the van.

“Hey Nick.” Billy said “Ah you must be the young investigator who I’ve heard a lot about, I’m Billy.”

“I’m Luna, nice to meet you.” I replied “So…you’ve heard a lot about me from where exactly?”

“ah…thank Zak for that.” He replied before laughing. “Nah in all seriousness being possessed or channelled during your _first_ investigation was quite a shock to these guys I tell ya.”

“It was quite…weird…yeah.” I mumbled. Remembering that night wasn’t exactly my top priority at the moment, it was quite the opposite and if I had to watch the footage of it again today it would be hard for me to forget about it again.

“Right we’re here, unload the van and be ready for a brief in five minutes.” Zak ordered as we drove into a parking lot after half an hour of driving.

We unloaded the van of the tapes and cameras and brought them into  a small office with several monitors and sets of speakers, there was a certain quirk about the room; the walls were white but they had paintings of ghouls, zombies and other supernatural beings. Nick and Aaron each sat in one of four leather chairs in the room in front of desks lining two of the walls. Billy was somewhere with Zak probably discussing technical stuff, I ferried boxes back and forth filled with research papers for the recent investigations.

“Why am I doing this again?” I sighed as I dumped the last box on Nick’s desk.

“Because we got nothing else to do – plus you’re the rookie therefore you get all the slave jobs that we’d normally get Aaron to do.” Nick replied

“How can three locations have so much paperwork?” I complained flopping down in a chair between both of them.

“They’re all historic locations, what do you expect?” Aaron commented

“Why have we got _five_ boxes for somewhere you guys have investigated before?”

“So you can catch up on the history before we investigate.” Nick replied

“…God damn it…” I muttered trying to conceal a smile.

Zak and Billy walked into the room and pretty much ordered us to start work, instead of the normal analysis of audio or recorded video I had to read through five boxes  of history about Preston Castle in one afternoon without falling asleep, this should be fun…


	13. On the road again

**Chapter thirteen  
On the road again**

 

The afternoon seemed to take forever to go by, it sped up though after Zak gave me his iPod to try and stop me falling asleep at the desk. I was reading the last page of the investigation report detailing what happened last time the GAC went to Preston Castle; most of it was information about Zak’s channelling of Anna Corbin. A slow tiredness was slowly enveloping me; I didn’t get much sleep thanks to the weird voice waking me up every hour last night. Even with the random loud music ponding through my ears I felt very tired it was so tempting just to fall asleep right here, no-one would notice would they?

**~*~**

“Luna? Luna?” I heard a voice say, it was faint but I could hear them. “LUNA” they got louder. I opened my eyes _oh..i fell asleep…whoops…_

“Are you awake?” Nick asked shoving me slightly “I’ve been calling you for the past five minutes.”

“Oh…sorry, I couldn’t hear…” I mumbled as I sat up and stretched. I glanced around and saw no-one else around. “Where is everyone?”

“Billy and Aaron went to get more coffee and I don’t know where Zak is.” Nick replied leaning back in his chair. “We stopped about 15 minutes ago and just started talking, then Aaron and Billy went out and Zak went…somewhere…so I was going to ask you something but you were obviously asleep.”

“Ah I see…so what were you going to ask me?” I asked.

“Well don’t be mad, but this morning – honestly; what did you think when you saw Zak standing there with no top on?” he questioned me.

“Agh..” I said before bursting into laughter. “I was a little bit shocked at first…but then…I don’t know! There’s no way to describe the emotion I felt at the time.”

“Oh really?” he asked leaning forward in his seat.

“Yes really, I mean I saw his tattoos and…uh…his erm…” I stuttered getting more and more embarrassed as I went on trying to explain what I was thinking. “His rather impressive build…but there wasn’t anything like….”

Nick just started laughing, I wasn’t sure why until I heard a familiar voice behind me, it made me want to headbutt the desk; “You think I have an ‘impressive build’ eh?”

I could only imagine that my face was bright red at this point with embarrassment. “Uh...well what I meant was…er…yeah.” I muttered turning around to face a smirking Zak. Him and Nick exchanged looks and then started laughing, I too started laughing although I wasn’t sure why as the entire situation was embarrassing for me. We were still laughing when Aaron and Billy walked in with what looked like seven cups of coffee between them.

“Oh good caffeine hits have arrived.” Nick commented.

“You bet dude!” Aaron announced as he put down four of the coffees on the desk beside me. “Who wants one?”

“I’ll take one.” Nick answered

“Same here.” Zak replied “Do you want one Luna?”

“uh…no thanks.” I said eyeing to steaming Starbucks cups next to me “Coffee has a negative effect on my state of mind, mainly my sanity.”

“Then why not have one? It’d be funny seeing you with a caffeine buzz.” Billy commented.

“That would not be a good idea, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate in analysing evidence for the rest of the afternoon.”

“Not that you were sleeping or anything…” Nick coughed before laughing.

“Of _course not_.” I replied jokingly.

“Well Billy and I will have the rest then if no one else wants them.” Aaron said taking the remaining coffees off my paper-littered desk. “So how far did you actually get with the investigation report before you fell asleep?”

“Ugh the last thing I read was…something about Zak’s encounter with Anna Corbin.” I replied “Then I kind of fell asleep…”

“And started dreaming about Zak…” Nick interrupted

“HUH?” I asked loudly, what the hell is Nick talking about? I wasn’t dreaming about Zak...or at least I don’t _think_ I was…

“You were mumbling something about him, I didn’t hear exactly what you were saying but I heard you saying Zak’s name and something about the dungeon.” Nick informed me and the rest of the crew as if it was just another piece of information for our investigation.

I felt my face burning; “Damn my sleep-talking.” I muttered “I mean my internal monologue should know by now to keep quiet.”

“What was that Luna?” Aaron asked smugly taking a mouthful of coffee.

“Oh nothing, nothing at all guys. Now how about we get back to analysing the evidence?” I reply quickly

“Changing the subject rather quickly, I’d like to hear more about this dream.” Zak said looking deadly serious.

I looked at Nick with an expression that screamed; ‘why did you do this to me?!’. Many scenarios ran through my head about what could possibly make things any worse than they already were which made me overlook the fact that I actually couldn’t remember the alleged dream.

“C’mon Luna tell us, we’re all eager to hear about this dream you were so passionately talking about…” Billy urged

“I can’t remember it. That’s the truth guys, I seriously can’t remember any of it, so stop asking me for things I don’t know.” I replied

“Oh what a let-down!” Aaron cried

“You _sure_ you can’t remember?”  Nick asked

“Positive. Now isn’t there some audio or something you guys need to analyse?” I said

“That’s a good point, but we’re pretty much done we only have to file everything and then start the prep work for our visit to Preston Castle.” Zak replied finishing his coffee.

“And that should take about two hours I’d imagine.” Aaron added turning back to his computer. “So I’m going to start putting all the video from the first night in the Stanley hotel into files.”

“I’ll start with the audio then.” Nick commented.

“I’ll do the thermal imaging and the static cameras from the second night in the Stanley.” Billy announced.

“That leaves the rest for me then.” Zak said “Luna you pack all the boxes up and boot up your laptop, find some recent investigation reports from other teams who’ve been to Preston Castle.”

“You got it boss.” I replied whilst dumping the reports back into their box. The next hour was spent not in silence with everyone wearing earphones but with jokes and comments about the evidence thrown back and forth between us. All the evidence was filed away and all the coffee had been drank, all that was left to do was read them the reports from the other teams who’ve been to Preston Castle.

“Ugh I hate filing stuff, but it’s done now.” Aaron complained stretching and turning around to face the rest of the team who had finished their jobs half an hour before hand.

“Sheesh Aaron I had more to do and even _I_ finished before you.” Billy laughed

“Alright guys let’s just get on with this – Luna what have you got on Preston Castle?” Zak asked.

“Okay, well we know it was built June 1894 to house male juvenile offenders who were transferred from San Quentin State Prison. It was abandoned in 1960 after they built a new complex for the juveniles elsewhere, now one to the paranormal aspect of it; Anna Corbin was bludgeoned to death in the kitchen in the 1950s, two of the boys there were charged with her murder and you can still visit their graves today.” I explained “Other teams have been there since your last visit and have experienced; voices following them, footsteps up and down the corridors but no trace of who or what made them, screams, apparitions but nothing like what happened to you Zak, last time you were there.”

“So basically activity has picked up since we were there?” Nick replied

“Pretty much yeah, no-one has been there for a few months though so I’m not sure how that’ll affect the investigation.”

“Well hopefully I won’t get the marking of a trinity again.” Aaron commented

“I hope you don’t too, to be honest I’ve seen the episode when you last went to Preston Castle, and if half the stuff that happened back then happens in a few days’ time then it’ll certainly be a night I won’t forget.” I remark.

“Well I think we should pack up, go and grab something to eat then get some sleep so we can leave at dawn.” Zak suggested

“Alright, you guys pack up and I’ll find some food, subway sandwiches sound good to everyone?” Billy asked

“Yeah.” We replied whilst gathering up the equipment and packing it into Zak’s van.

“So I assume I’m staying at your house again tonight.” I mention to Zak as the last crate was packed into the back of the van.

“Well if you don’t mind…you don’t have to I mean you could ask Aaron to see if he can put you up for the night.”

“Nah I won’t trouble him, but forgive me if I’m in not in a talkative mood tomorrow especially if that voice comes to visit me again.” I explain.

“Okay, well if worse comes to worse you can have my bed and I’ll sleep on the couch.” He said with a smirk on his face. I felt my face redden at the thought, we were standing in the parking lot waiting for Nick, Aaron and Billy to lock up and regroup for lunch.

“Uh..yeah, maybe I’ll take you up on that offer…” I mumbled trying to conceal my scarlet cheeks with my hair.

“What offer?” Nick shouted as Him and Aaron appeared from beside the van.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” I reply quickly.

We all got into the van, minus Billy as he had left already and was busy buying sandwiches, he said he would meet us in Subway. The ride into the town centre was fast and with Nick and Aaron pestering me about what Zak had offered. This reminded me of how childish they can be at times.

“Why do you keep secrets from us Luna?” whined Aaron

“Because I’d prefer that they don’t end up on international tv, as I _know_ you will bring it up later when we’re investigating and then chaos will ensue. Simple really, I have friends who do exactly that, only minus the TV factor.” I reply

“We won’t say anything on camera.” Nick said grinning from ear to ear.

“Likely story, I’m not falling for that one guys.”

“Yo dudes we’re here, and Billy’s got the food.” Zak interrupted as we pulled up to a Subway with Billy standing outside of clinging to a bulging bag of food. As he got in he handed each of us a six inch sub-sandwich, I ended up with a ham salad sub.

“What the hell is in this thing?” I asked poking the side of the bread.

“Ham, cucumber, lettuce and mayonnaise.” Billy replied taking a huge bite out of his sandwich that seemed to be stuffed with insane amounts of cheese.

“Ugh…well it _is_ food so I’ll eat it I guess.” I mumbled gingerly taking a bit out of it.

“How is it?” Zak asked with a mouth full of food.

“It’s alright, it’s food.” I reply “It’ll keep me going until we get to Ione.” I reply.

Zak finished his food and then drove straight onto the highway heading for California.

“Zak I thought we were leaving in the morning?” I ask him

“Change of plan, we need to leave now, I’ll explain when we get there.” Zak said.

The journey itself wasn’t that bad, despite being squashed between Aaron and Nick in the back seat of the van.  It wasn’t exactly nice being sat between them as they ate bulging sub-sandwiches but it was better than them annoying me with constant taunting, but they are like brothers so I can’t blame them.

We were flying along the highway when Zak slammed on the brakes causing all of us to be launched forwards in our seats. I looked up and saw the three lanes of the highway completely filled with stationary vehicles in front of us.

“This doesn’t look good.” Billy mumbled taking one of the last bites of his sandwich.

“No, maybe the radio has some idea what’s going on.” Zak replied turning the van’s radio on to the local station.

“ _You’re listening to 91.5 FM and right now we have reports of a huge tailback on highway 80 just inside the California border after an accident this morning, traffic has come to a complete standstill and doesn’t appear to be showing any signs of moving anytime soon. We’ll keep you posted folks but to all you drivers caught in the tailback we have some hopefully calming music for you, once again you are listening to 91.5 FM of Sacramento.”_  The voice of a laid-back DJ echoed through the otherwise silent van. I could see Zak’s expression growing more and more irritated as the apparently soothing music set in, his hands gripped the steering wheel and his eyes narrowed on the estate car in front of him.

“What do you think we should do?” Billy asked, breaking the momentary silence between us. “Our investigation doesn’t start until tomorrow but we ought to get to Ione before dark.”

“Yes…but I can’t get off the highway for another five miles and with the speed we’re going, or not going in our case, it’ll take hours at this rate. That’s not even taking into account the diversion we’d be taking to get to Ione.” Zak replied rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“So we’re going to have to sit here for what? Three hours? Four?” I asked

“It’s possible, it depends on how bad the accident is and where exactly it is.” Billy replied turning around in his seat to face Nick, Aaron and me in the back seat. “Ever been stuck in a massive traffic jam?”

“Well England isn’t exactly the best place for driving, but I’ve ended up being sat on a coach for a day, which wasn’t fun in the slightest.” I answer “Then again that was with 30 teenagers whom I didn’t exactly get along with.”

“Sounds fun, so does anyone have any ideas on how we should stop ourselves going crazy?” Aaron asked

“We’re already crazy dude, and what do you suggest? We don’t exactly have much space here to _do_ anything.” Nick replied

“Good point, are there any paper and pens around?” I queried

“Why would you need paper and a pen?” Zak snapped

“Sheesh I was just going to try and have some fun, sorry your royal highness I didn’t realize that fun was forbidden when you’re cranky.” I snapped back in reply causing the van to go quiet with only the rambling folk music in the background.

“She has a point y’know…” Aaron mumbled after we sat in silence for a few minutes.

“What?” Zak spat.

“You do seem to be cranky a lot and when that happens you give everyone the death glare anytime they try to lighten the mood.” Aaron explained.

Zak’s hands tightened around the steering wheel before the van jolted as he slammed the accelerator into the floor and drove down the hard shoulder towards the exit of the highway He was driving like a madman, I grabbed hold of what I assumed was the seat in order to not get flung into either Nick or Aaron as we hurtled down pass the stationary traffic honking their car horns at the crazy driver we knew as our leader.

As we took the exit off the crowded highway and on to a barren side road, the van lurched as Zak drove over potholes at over 70mph. It was starting to get dark and cold both outside and inside the van, it was also silent as the radio lost its range and none of us wanted to say anything that would agitate Zak more than he already was.

He stopped the van in the middle of the road, the sun had set by now and we were all confused about why he stopped the van. He got out and wandered off into a field nearby leaving us in the vehicle.

“What is he doing now?” Nick asked

“You expect _me_ to know?!” Billy responded

“Maybe, you generally know most things.” Aaron commented

“I dunno guys, it’s pretty dark out there…” I mumble “Maybe…one of us should go and find him…”

“He’ll be fine, don’t worry it’s Zak after all.” Billy assured me

“ _Exactly_ that’s my point, he’s not in the right frame of mind today, and you’re going to let him wander around in a Californian field at night in the middle of January?!” I hysterically say

“Calm down! I’ll go an-” Billy started but an eruption of thunder interrupted him. Rain started falling heavily on the roof of the van and around us on the dirt road turning it to mud.

“So let’s get this straight; Zak’s out there in the storm with no jacket or anything, we don’t know where he is and who knows when he’ll be back?” Aaron asked.

We sat in acknowledged silence, what was Zak up to? Why the sudden abandonment in the middle of nowhere?


	14. In the middle of nowhere...

**Chapter fourteen  
In the middle of nowhere**

 

We got ready to leave the van, the storm was getting worse but we all agreed that we couldn’t let Zak wander out there alone on a night like this; we decided that Aaron was going to stay in the van in-case Zak came back whilst we were looking for him.

“So have we got flashlights?” Nick asked pulling his jacket hood over his head.

 “Yep, are you both ready to go?” Billy asked Nick and me.

“Yeah I’m ready.” I replied

“Same here.” Nick answered. “So let’s get going, who knows how far out he’s gone.”

Nick opened the side door of the van and jumped out into the pouring rain with me and Billy following, we waved to Aaron as we entered the same field that Zak went through less than half an hour before hand. The rain made visibility difficult even with our flashlights and the field was practically a swamp but we could just about see Zak’s footprints in the mud and that was our only clue to where he had wandered off to.

“I’m going to ask a seemly stupid question; why didn’t we try and call him before setting out to find him?” I asked them as we trekked through a neighbouring field of similar swamp-like terrain in the ever increasing rain.

“No cell phone signal.” Nick replied edging his way around a fence connecting the fields to a ravaged footpath. “Where the hell are we?”

We were now on a mud road, which was in better shape than the two fields we crossed to get to wherever we were now. More footprints led up the road towards a house ravaged by the outside elements. We followed the footprints up the road and into the house, which the door was left wide open. Inside the house the furniture was either covered with white paint sheets and dust or lying broken everywhere, the rooms were covered in cobwebs and were in complete darkness, it looked like no-one had been there in a long time, at least until we found more of Zak’s footprints leading up a grand staircase. Whilst Nick and Billy proceeded up the staircase I decided to look around on the ground floor, I walked over to a dust covered fireplace; wondering how old the house was and how long it had been in this condition. After taking in the surroundings of the living room I walked through an archway into a dining room, it wasn’t in much better condition than the hallway and living room; the chairs were tipped over on the floor covered in dust, the plates were shattered all over the floor and the pictures that must’ve hung on the wall were smashed all over the place.

“What the hell?” I whispered to myself as I looked at one of the pictures, it showed what looked to be a happy family outside the house, it looked a lot better in the picture then it did now. Something about the people in the picture intrigued me but I couldn’t quite figure out what. I realized that Nick and Billy has been upstairs for a while and I hadn’t heard from either of them, I walked cautiously up the faded green staircase and came to a landing which split into two corridors leading to three separate rooms each, I could see one of the doors far down the left corridor was open with a beam from a flashlight coming out of it.

I peered around the door and saw Billy and Nick looking through a box on a heavily quilted bed, as I joined them Nick pulled out a picture of a young girl with long black hair wearing a white dress, she didn’t look too happy to be photographed.

“Hey she looks like a younger version of you Luna!” he exclaimed showing the picture to me, it felt weird as I could see what Nick was talking about, she looked a lot like I did when I was younger, this unsettled me.

“Your point?” I reply “Any sign of Zak?”

“Nope, well this was the only room unlocked up here, the others are all locked.” Billy answered digging through the box again. He didn’t find anything interesting apparently, as we were walking along the corridor we found a few more footprints leading to a locked door, they were _definitely_ Zak’s prints there was no doubt as his two closest friends knew exactly what type of footwear he owns. I tried to turn the handle but it was locked just as Nick and Billy said it was.

“What now?” Nick asked

“You break the door down Nicholas. Or you could do it Billy.” I reply staring at the door.

“Why the formality?” Nick asked me again

“I don’t know.” I answered backing away from the door. “Just break the door down.”

“Alright.” Nick grunted as he kicked the door, it stayed firmly in the doorframe and hardly moved at all.

“Let me try.” Billy said, he kicked the door and it remained in the same state it had been five minutes ago.

“Why don’t you both kick it at the same time?” I suggested

“Okay” Nick responded, they both kicked the door, this time it ended up with a huge dent in it. Noticing this they kicked it again and it broke into large chunks. Once the dust settled we entered the room expecting to find Zak, all we found instead was a load of old books and lots of cobwebs. As we thumbed through the pile of books an uneasy presence seemed to enter the room with us.

“So Zak isn’t here…where the hell _is_ he then?” Nick said after a few minutes of silence.

“I don’t know Nick, I really don’t know but do you feel that this room’s atmosphere has changed since we’ve been in here?” I replied without looking up from the book I was holding.

“A little, but it’s probably just our adrenaline rush; we’re in a pretty creepy place at night during a thunderstorm with no phone reception. It’s pure horror movie gold.” He replied.

“Say what have you got there Luna?” Billy asked gesturing to the book I was holding.

“Oh this? It’s a book that seems to be about paranormal theories.” I answered flicking through the pages yellow with age. “I figured it might be useful.”

“Maybe it’s not a good idea to take it…I mean you never know what could be attached to it.” Nick commented whilst taking the book from me.

“True, but I don’t think there’s anything here, I mean God only knows where Zak is but I don’t think there’s anything here, and ignoring the footprints there would be no reason to assume there was.” I replied taking the book back.

“Alright, whatever don’t come complaining to me when a spirit is in your home waking you up every two hours because of that book.”

“Actually I wouldn’t mind having a spirit in my house, it would make things more interesting.” I smugly reply before walking out of the room.

“Dude, you just got owned.” Billy said before briskly following me, we were joined a few minutes later by Nick by the front door.

“I think we should just check the rest of this floor and if he’s not here then we should just head back to the van and wait for him to show up.” I commented.

“Sounds good.” Billy replied

“I’ve already checked the living room and the dining room with nothing useful coming up.” I explained “So we should go this way..” I walked to a door on the other-side of the staircase and opened it revealing a kitchen that looked to have been destroyed by a fire. The counters were nothing but wooden shells covered in ash, the floor and the walls were black with smoke, everything was burnt to some degree and was now useless. We split up and each took a different area of the kitchen to search, not that Zak would be hiding amongst the burnt chairs or anything.

“Well I think we’ve found out why the house was left the way it was; this would’ve been expensive to fix, it’s amazing that the house is still standing…” Nick exclaimed

Billy walked into what must’ve been the pantry and called out to us; “Hey get over here, you might wanna see this..”

Nick and I hurried over to the reasonably clean pantry. “So what did you find?” I ask

“Look on the floor Luna, it’s not exactly something you see every day…” he replied

We all looked at the floor; there was a small pool of dried liquid, it gave off a potent stench and glistened red in the light for our flashlights. ”Is that blood?” Nick shouted right in my ear.

“I think so…but where did it come from?” Billy replied looking further into the pantry. “This doesn’t go back any further.”

I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket, I took it out and looked at it confused as I was told we had no phone signal, but clear as day it had signal and Aaron was calling me.

“Hello?”

“Hey Luna Zak’s here, so you guys can get back to the van now.” He explained

“Oh cool how is he?” I ask relieved

“I’m fine Luna, just get back here… _now_ ” Zak’s stern voice came over the phone, he seemed urgent but I guessed we’d have to find out what was bugging him once we got back.

“Got it, we’ll be back soon, see ya.” I replied and ended the call. “Zak’s with Aaron, so we should head back now guys.” I explained to Nick and Aaron who were both clearly looking at something behind me.

“Wait…Zak’s with Aaron?” Nick asked

“Yes...that’s what I said, he’s there, and I spoke to him.”

“Then who’s in the doorway?” Billy asked nervously.

I turned around and sure enough in the doorway was someone who had a similar build to Zak but we couldn’t see his face as it was so dark, but the voice was enough to confuse the heck out of us; “So guys shall we go?” the person said, if he hadn’t sounded _exactly_ like Zak then maybe we wouldn’t have been so freaked out, but he did and that was enough to send alarm bells ringing in my head.

“Why does he sound exactly like Zak?” I hissed at both Nick and Billy who were standing and glaring at the person in the doorway who hadn’t moved an inch.

“Because…uh…well…” Nick mumbled “I don’t know…you got any bright ideas Billy?

“Only that we get out of here…and fast…”

“Guys…Zak sounded panicked on the phone, like he knows something but he didn’t tell me…” I interrupted.

The person moved slowly from the doorway and walked towards us, Nick gently pushed me behind him towards Billy putting him between us and the mystery person, as he got closer to us our flashlights began to dim slightly however I could see that whoever this was; he looked like he could be Zak’s twin. Something wasn’t right about this entire situation, it made me feel uneasy.

“Who are you?” Nick asked the Zak look-a-like who was barely a foot in front of him.

“Nick don’t mess around, I’m Zak, who else could I possibly be?” the look-a-like replied.

“You’re not Zak, he’s not here, who are _you_?” Nick asked through gritted teeth.

“I’m Zak, now get the gear Nick we’re investigating this place.”

“What about Preston Castle? We’re supposed to be _there_ by now.” Nick fired back

“Preston Castle?” the look-a-like took a long stare at each of us in turn.  “No…no you don’t wanna go there…” he said shaking his head

Nick looked at us before turning back to ‘Zak’ “Why? We’ve been before, we agreed we’d go back there to gather more evidence whatever the cost, we’ve been to worse places.”

“NO PLACE IS WORSE THAN THERE!” ‘Zak’ exploded

The flashlights died and everything went dark, I couldn’t see anything and all I could hear was Billy’s panicked yell to Nick; “Come on Nick! We need to get out of here!” the next thing I knew I had been quickly pushed into someone’s arms and I was lifted over their shoulder, I felt the cold smoke scented air rush past me as I was carried through and out of the house. One dim street light lit the mud road outside, it had stopped raining but it was cold, very cold. I was put on the ground from being carried in a fireman’s lift outside, I looked up and realized that Nick was the one who had carried me out of the building.

“You alright?” He asked me still holding my shoulders

“Uh…yeah…I’m fine…” I mumbled staring up at him, he simply stared back with a slight smirk on his face.

“Ahem, guys shouldn’t we be getting back to the van? I know for a fact that Zak wouldn’t like to be kept waiting.” Billy commented.

“Oh, yeah, come on then, we’ll have to rely on our phones for our source of light.” Nick replied.

We managed to find our way back to the van where what we hoped was the actual Zak was sat in the front passenger seat next to Aaron. We all piled into the back seat and then it started raining again.

“Sheesh what happened to you guys?” Aaron asked “You’re all covered in dust and mud.”

“Oh thanks Aaron, we didn’t realize, it’s not like we’ve been in an old abandoned house for the past two hours.” Billy replied

“House?” Zak snapped and turned around “Where?”

“About two fields that way.” I said pointing out the window. “It looks to have been partly destroyed by a fire, but then abandoned in the middle of the night many years ago.”

“And why did it take you so long to get back here from when I called you?” Aaron asked

Nick and Billy just looked at each other whilst I stared at the floor of the van. “Well…we were kind of in the kitchen and…” Nick explained what had happened after Aaron called us. Zak’s facial expression showed his disbelief.

“I told you to get out of there, why didn’t you just leave as soon as I told you to?” he asked

“Because by the time Luna got off the phone with you that _thing_ was already there.” Billy replied “Dude, whatever it was; it wasn’t human.”

“That’s because it was a doppelgänger.” I said

They all fell silent and looked at me. “What did you just say…?”  Zak muttered

“A doppelganger, a spirit who is quite often demonic in nature takes on the appearance of a person and wanders around causing trouble, if you should come in contact with a doppelganger of yourself then you are to allegedly die.” I reply “It’s probably what we saw in the house. It’s probably why the flashlights died as well; you did kind of piss it off Nick.”

“He did what?” Aaron asked

“It was impersonating Zak and flipped out when I mentioned Preston Castle.” Nick explained

“Why did it flip out?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know?! But it made our flashlights die so we got the hell out of there.”

“Urgh, whatever, Aaron drive us to Sacramento, we’ll crash in a hotel tonight and get to Ione tomorrow.”  Zak mumbled.

We sat for the rest of the journey to Sacramento in an uncomfortable silence, I was so glad that I’d be in a hotel room in an hours’ time, although I could’ve done without being squashed between Nick and Billy.  It gave me time to try and figure out what had happened between me and Nick after we got out of the house, as I thought through the events prior to it happening I remembered when Zak was driving like a madman that I thought I grabbed onto the seat in desperation to not get knocked aside, I had _actually_ grabbed Nick’s leg.

“Whoops…” I said out loud.

“What?” Nick asked.

_Oh shit…_ ” Uh nothing, don’t worry.” I replied. _God that was a close one…_

We went back to sitting in silence as we drove into the parking lot of a hotel. 


	15. I hate this place already!

**Chapter fifteen  
I hate this place already!**

As we entered the hotel a blonde haired receptionist raised her eyebrow at the sight of us, after all three of us were coved in dust and the other two were looking pretty tired. She handed Aaron two room keys still with a raised eyebrow.

“Hold on, there are five of us and we only get two rooms?” He asked her.

“Yes, there are three single beds in one room and two single beds in the other, and before you ask; yes they are next door to each other and there is a connecting door between them.” She replied impatiently.

“Okay thanks.” Aaron said and turned to us, “So who’s in what room?”

“Nick and Luna you’re in the two bed room, Billy and Aaron you’re with me in the other room.” Zak barked before taking the room keys from Aaron and throwing one to Nick.

“Fine, come on then Luna.” Nick replied and walked out of reception down to the room, I followed him saying nothing. He unlocked the door and walked in, the room was quite small but it had the promised two separate beds, a TV which probably had bad reception, a desk, a door leading to a bathroom and the door connecting the two separate rooms together.

“You alright Luna? You haven’t said anything since we got back into the van.” He asked after putting our bags down next to the desk

“Uh..yeah I’m fine, just tired.” I mumbled in reply. “I’m going to have a shower as I’m covered in dust, okay?”

“Yeah sure, I’ll be in the other room if I’m not here.” He replied.

I found my bag of toiletries and walked into the bathroom, I turned on the shower and hot water started pouring out, as I got in and the water pounded on my head I began to think about what had happened at the house; how did that spirit, assuming it was a spirit, take on Zak’s appearance?  Surely it would’ve had to have seen Zak to take on his appearance? What if it _had_ seen Zak? Was that why he wanted us out of there quickly? 

The thing puzzling me most as I’m sure Nick, Aaron and Billy we also curious about was _why_ Zak just wandered off like that? Where did he go? Did he go to the house? If so why? If not then how did he know what was going on? I leaned my head against the wall, too much thought was going into this. Then I remembered the entire van incident with Nick and then after he carried me out of the house when we were just looking at each other. _What the hell is happening? I can’t be…_ I thought to myself. _There is no way that any of this means anything. Just no way. Snap out of it Luna._

 It must’ve been at least midnight when I finally got out of the shower. I tied my hair up and changed into my jogging bottoms and strappy top before walking back into the room.  No-one was there so I went into the other room and found all four of them playing cards on the floor. They all looked up as I walked in; “Ah thank God you’ve been in the shower for like two hours!” Billy exclaimed “We began to think you’d fallen asleep or something.”

“Yeah...not quite..” I replied, “So what are you all doing?”

“Eh just playing cards,  nothing exciting.” Aaron replied.

“Ah okay, well I’m going to bed then, I’m shattered.” I mumbled before walking back into my room, I got into one of the beds and fell asleep almost instantly without even considering turning off the lights or shutting the door, I was just _that_ tired.

**~ 10:30 am ~**

I had been lying down staring at the ceiling for about ten minutes when Nick finally woke up in the bed next to me. “What time is it?” he mumbled still half asleep.

“Ten thirty.” I replied sitting up. “Zak’s gone out somewhere to find food and as far as I know Billy and Aaron are still asleep.”

“Oh okay.” He said. “How are you today?”

“Fine, better than yesterday, are we going to Preston Castle today?”

“I think so, tonight we should be investigating there so unless Zak’s made a last minute decision we are going there later on today.”

I got up and got changed in the bathroom, as I came out Zak, Billy, Nick and Aaron were all eating bacon rolls and talking about Preston Castle and what happened last time they went there. I sat on my bed facing them, Billy handed me a roll and the conversation continued;

“So this time, considering we have Luna with us, we should split up into pairs; obviously you Billy are just going to be watching the outside of Preston Castle and the static night vision camera.” Zak explained

“Yep.” Billy replied

“We’ll start off the investigation all together and just walk around a little and get a feel for the place, then we’ll split up and investigate in pairs.” He went on. “Luna and Nick; you will go down to the basement whilst Aaron and I will go to Anna Corbin’s room. We’ll meet up in the infirmary and continue all together before splitting up again later on.”

“Sounds good, so when are we leaving?” Nick asked finishing his roll.

“Well, whenever everyone’s ready, we’ll need to do a walkthrough again with the owner of the place, then mark our ‘x’s, make sure we have loads of spare batteries for everything and that nothing drastic has happened.” Zak replied

“Like what?” I asked

“Well…uh…any violent attacks on anyone, possessions etc…”

“Oh, well I’m ready whenever you guys are.” I remarked eating the last of my roll and stretching out on my bed

“So glad it’s that easy for you to be ready.” Zak commented. “Right so we’ll leave in ten minutes.”

“But I’ve not finished my roll yet!” Aaron protested

“Well hurry up and eat it then” I replied

Aaron hurriedly finished eating and then ran into his room to pack up the laptops and other equipment. I remained sat on my bed whilst the rest of them rushed around picking up various pieces of luggage and equipment that was strewn between the two rooms. The half an hour seemed to fly by as before I knew it I was crammed in the back seat of the van again between Nick and Aaron again. This time we managed to get to Preston Castle without getting diverted to a random house in the middle of nowhere.

As we drew up to the massive red stone castle-like structure it dawned on me how far outside of the city of Sacramento, from any kind of civilisation even. We unloaded the van and dumped our stuff in the main hallway before going on a walkthrough with another paranormal investigator from a paranormal group based nearby. We were standing in the infirmary listening to the other investigator when Zak noticed there were roses on the ground next to one of the beds.

“Who put those roses there?” He asked

“Uh…I don’t know, no-one’s been here since our group back in October and they weren’t there back then.” The investigator said shuffling nervously.

We all stood and speculated about the origin of the roses when I felt a cold breeze brush past my neck, I looked around and saw just an empty derelict corridor, I shrugged it off as the wind and tried to focus on the task at hand, a few minutes passed and then it happened again. Once again I looked behind me and saw nothing there, this time Aaron noticed me;

“You alright?” he whispered trying not to cause a scene.

“Yeah I just keep feeling a cold breeze on my neck.” I replied “Like something touching me.”

“If it happens again say something.” He told me before turning his attention back to Zak talking about the diseases which caused some of the deaths here. The walkthrough came to a close without any more strange things occurring, we set up a command central in the van where Billy would be sat all night trying not to fall asleep and then put a few night vision cameras in hotspots around the building. The cameras were set up in the infirmary, the basement, the spot where Anna Corbin died and one in the old kitchen.

Aaron and I had just finished setting up the last camera in the basement and were heading back to the van when we both heard a scream from upstairs on the fourth floor, we looked at each other before racing up the stairs to try and find what was making the scream we both heard. After searching the entire floor Aaron radioed Zak over the two-way radio;

“Dude are you there?”

“Yeah what is it?” Zak asked

“Me and Luna were on the third floor, doing a final check of the cameras on that floor after we had set up the camera in the basement..” Aaron explained

“Right…so what’s going on?” Zak interrupted

“Well we were walking down one of the corridors and we both heard a scream from the fourth floor, so we ran up here and there’s no-one here dude.”

“So…fourth floor right? Okay I’ll get Nick to run up a digital recorder and we’ll let it sit there recording for the afternoon and pick it up later.” Zak answered.

“Got it.” Aaron replied “So Luna I guess it’s back to the van.” He said to me.

“Yep, wait shouldn’t we wait for Nick to come up with the recorder?” I asked

“Well you can if you want, I’m getting out of here, Billy should’ve got back with the coffee by now.”

“Okay, I’ll wait for him.” I said. Aaron then nodded and left to go and find Billy whilst I waited alone for Nick. The fourth floor didn’t have that many claims of activity attached to it but it was still creepy being there alone, but at least it was still daylight outside, even if the windows cast weird shadows across the broken floorboards.

I leaned against the wall of the main corridor, if you could call it that anymore, falling to pieces and creaking every-time that a breeze rushes through from a broken window. It occurred to me that Aaron took the two-way radio with him when he left, so I have no way other than running down eight flights of stairs to contact Zak in an emergency.

Not that anything that drastic would happen, but it’s always nice to have a back-up plan.” I said out loud. Nick was taking a long time, or maybe I was just being impatient again. It seemed like the corridor went on forever as I looked down past the staircase, then I heard a noise, it sounded like footsteps coming towards me.

“Nick?” I called out “Is that you? The footsteps stopped and the corridor was silent, my pulse quickened, there was something there but whatever it was didn’t want to be seen. “Who’s there?” I intended to call out but it came out as little more than a whisper. There was no reply from the seemingly endless corridor, I started to panic when I realised it was getting darker by the minute. “That’s right Nick, take your time, it’s not like I’m alone up here or anything…” I complained. Whispers started coming from the room opposite from where I was standing, I ignored them at first hoping it was just my imagination and that they’d stop in a few minutes, but they got louder, I started being able to make out odd words, whether they were English or not was yet to be figured out.

I became so absorbed in trying to decipher what the voices were saying that I didn’t realize that I had walked across the hallway and press myself against the door frame trying to listen clearer. All I need to here was one sentence before I panicked and flew myself down the stairs;

“ _…Kill her…”_

A million different scenarios ran through my head as I rushed away from the fourth floor, I got to the stairwell of the second floor when  literally ran into Nick, I had tears in my eyes and was set on getting out of the building.

“Whoa! What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” he asked slightly chuckling at the last part.

“I-I was waiting for you upstairs…Aaron went back to the van…I started hearing voices…t-then...something said…said…” I stuttered “It said…K-kill her..I was so scared I just ran, ran down the stairs, don’t make me go back there please!”

“okay okay, umm…” he replied “Zak told me to put this recorder on the fourth floor so I need to go up there..”

“Don’t leave me! I don’t want to be alone in here anymore!” I cried out _Get a grip of yourself Luna_ I thought through the battle to keep myself from freaking out further.

“It’ll only take a minute, you could either come with me or stay here.” He replied

“mmf..” I could only say. “I-I’ll come with you then…but…” I mumbled

“Just stay close and don’t admit you’re afraid.” He said “If they know you’re afraid then they’ll attack you further.”

“Okay..” I whispered

We climbed the stairs up to the fourth floor, as soon as we had climbed the last step I stayed close to Nick, I was petrified to be up here again less than ten minutes after I had heard the voice. I swallowed back the tears of fear and forced my feet to follow Nick as he approached a table halfway along the corridor.

“Rolling on the digital recorder, it’s half four on the afternoon of the investigation, Aaron and Luna have both heard voices from up here, including a threat less than ten minutes ago.” Nick spoke into the little grey box he was holding, he then put it down on the table and turned to me. “You okay?”

“Yes…let’s go…now” I whispered still staying beside him.

We managed to get from the fourth floor back to the van without encountering anymore activity. As soon as we got back and Zak saw me pale-faced and shivering his annoyed attitude changed dramatically.

“Luna what’s wrong? Last I heard you were waiting for Nick on the fourth floor.”

“I-I…I don’t wanna….” I mumbled

“Okay, don’t stress about it, just tell someone at some-point that’s all I ask.” Zak replied “So is the recorder in place?”

“Yeah, it’s rolling now hopefully we’ll capture something similar to…” Nick replied looking at me “…to what’s been heard in the past.” He finished uneasily

Zak looked at both of us with a sceptical eye before turning to Billy and Aaron who had been checking the feeds on all the cameras. “Is everything working?” he asked

“Everything’s in full working order, and before you ask; everything, and I mean _everything_ has fresh batteries in and spares available by the bucketload.” Billy replied “And I have plenty of coffee and snacks to get me through tonight.”

“Well with that said; let’s get everything we need inside and get locked down guys.” Zak announced

We packed the relevant equipment into a rucksack and went inside Preston Castle, once I heard the lock clunk in the door the memories of the voice on the fourth floor came flooding back, complete with the emotions;

“… _Kill her...”_

I closed my eyes and prayed that nothing bad would happen to any of us tonight, the last thing I needed was another attack from a spirit.


	16. This is one creepy building...

**Chapter sixteen  
 This is one creepy building…**

The investigation started as Zak had instructed earlier today; we started walking around the massive structure that was Preston Castle just to get a feel of the atmosphere inside and of the ambient temperature.  I was still highly paranoid after my experience earlier on and didn’t actively try to do anything useful, I was too hung up on trying to keep my emotions in check and to not let on how much that voice still petrified me in my thoughts as is played over and over again.

“Luna? Camera?” Zak interrupted my thoughts

“Oh yeah sure, sorry.” I apologized handing him one of the handheld cameras from the bag on my shoulder.

“Hey, keep calm, don’t worry about gathering evidence just focus on keeping yourself calm and you’ll be fine.” He said taking the camera from me.

I nodded in response, light was rapidly fading within the building and we’d be in total darkness in a building with a load of restless spirits. Each of the guys had a handheld camera that was now recording and a digital recorder, I had an EMF detector in both front pockets of my jeans, and of course we each had a flashlight to hand should we need them.

“Right so it’s practically pitch black right now so let’s get night vision on so we can get some of these spirits caught on camera.” Zak ordered.

The cameras were switched to night vision and all other sources of light were turned off leaving us in the dark obelisk that was Preston Castle. As we went from room to room of the first floor trying to get a response we decided to spilt up for second part of the investigation, Zak and Aaron went off in search of Anna Corbin’s room whilst Nick and I departed for the basement where Anna’s body was found bludgeoned beyond recognition.

We stood at the top of the stairs to the basement just staring at them. “If I remember correctly you had to go down here alone last time didn’t you?” I asked Nick.

“Yeah to go look for the flowers that Zak left for Anna, don’t really want to go back down there alone again.” He replied

“Well this time you got a petrified person with you. I’ll try not to let them get the better of me but do forgive me if I just curl up in the corner and stop responding to you.” I said. “So let’s go and talk to some spirits.”

I decided that the best way to overcome my sudden fear of ghosts was to force myself to go into the infamous basement first with Nick following holding the camera. Once we were in the basement I lost all sense of direction as we ended up in a cross-section of corridors leading to various storerooms.

“Uh…Nick? Any ideas where we’re meant to be going?” I asked the darkness around me hoping that the voice I’d get in reply would actually be Nick’s and not some distorted voice of a dead guy.

“We’re meant to be heading for the spot where they found her body; it should be down the corridor directly in front of you.”  Nick’s voice came from somewhere behind me.

I stretched out my hands in an effort to find the wall of the corridor, I could see how you can get freaked out if you heard something in the dark when you know there’s no-one there. My hands ran over the cracks of the wall and touched something sticky…

“EHH!” I screamed

“What?” Nick shouted

“Spider web…” I mumbled wiping my hands on my jeans. “Sorry, back to finding the corridor.”

“Gah…”he sighed “Come on, stay focused.”

“Okay, okay sorry, how far does this corridor go back?” I replied

“A little further and then it should open up into the area where she was left.”

I continued feeling my way along the corridor with no light to guide me and Nick just babbling to the camera about some past experience here, I interrupted him when I couldn’t feel the wall anymore; “I think we’ve reached the closed pace where she was found.”

“Cool, so let’s just sit here and do an EVP session.” He said

We sat down near the exact spot where Anna Corbin’s body was found and Nick started recording whilst he asked various questions; “Is there anyone here who would like to say something to us tonight?”

The basement remained quiet, no noise other than our light breathing. “Do you know who murdered Anna?” he asked, we heard nothing in response to his question.

“Are _you_ the person responsible for her death?”

I thought I heard a slight growl from somewhere behind me, my pulse instantly quickened again, _I can’t say I’m scared, it’ll make things worse_. I decided to try and battle my fear without letting on how scared I was; “Who are you? What is your name?” I asked

There was no response; the room seemed to be empty of any spiritual activity, I began to relax once there seemed to be no noise coming from anywhere, Nick would mumble something about it being too quiet for this place every once in a while but other than that things just seemed clam. Although I admit it seemed a little _too_ calm for a place where someone was murdered. Then we both heard something that shattered the calm atmosphere around us, something was scratching against the wall behind me, it wasn’t an animal, and it was loud.

“N-Nick…what’s that?” I stuttered

“I don’t know.” He replied getting up, he passed me and went further back into the basement where Zak had put flowers for Anna last time they were here. I followed cautiously glancing around the darkness, there wasn’t much space in the back of the basement and I literally walked into Nick and nearly fell over afterwards.

“Are you alright?” Nick whispered trying not to laugh whilst using the LCD screen of the camera for light,

“Yeah, I can’t see in the dark ya’ know.” I replied

“I gathered, it doesn’t seem that anything is back here.” He said “Stay quiet though and I’ll try asking some questions.”

I sat on the dusty stone floor and listened to Nick’s attempts to make contact with some spirits; “Who murdered Anna Corbin?” he asked bluntly.

A few moments passed with no response, “Why are you still here? Is your spirit not at rest?”

“Show yourself to us, speak to us, maybe we can help you.” I interjected.

“That’s probably not a good idea with all the spirits here-” Nick started to respond but he was cut short when we both heard a shrill scream from somewhere else in the basement.

“What….was _that_?” Nick asked and took off towards the cross-section of corridors, he forgot that I had no source of light with me other than the flashlight, I was reluctant to use it as it wasn’t really an _emergency_ as such.  I gingerly made my way to the cross-section retracing my steps to find it, I managed to get back to the various off-branching corridors but Nick was no-where to be found.

_Great now I’m stuck in a basement with no camera and Nick’s decided to go off on a search for a ghost._

I stood in the middle of the branching corridors waiting for Nick to come back, it seemed an eternity before I heard footsteps approaching me, I turned around expecting to see Nick but instead all I saw was darkness, I saw a shadow out of the corner of my eye dart out of one of the corridors towards me. I put up my arms in defence, if it was a spirit then I don’t see how crossing my arms over my face would help. I felt a cold breeze pass over my face.

_It was right in front of me…help…someone…_

“Luna?” Nick’s voice came echoing from down the corridor somewhere.

“Yes?” I replied

“Are you okay?” he shouted

“Yeah…found anything?” I called down to him still covering my face with my arms.

“Not really, I think we should regroup with Zak and Aaron.” He said coming back up the hallway towards me. “Why are you covering your face with your arms?” he asked puzzled

“Oh…uh…I…nevermind, where are we meeting Zak and Aaron?” I stuttered.

“In the infirmary, we’re gonna do a group EVP session before splitting up again.”

“Okay, so let’s go then, what was down the corridor?”

“Just some old furniture, I’ll need to put a new tape into the camera so can you get yourself to the infirmary by yourself?” Nick explained

_Are you crazy?! I can’t wander these corridors alone at night!_

“Yeah, I think I’ll manage, it’s on the third floor right?” I replied ignoring my paranoia.

“Yep, Zak and Aaron should be up there already.” He said “Luna, be careful, use the flashlight but keep it pointed at the floor, and whatever you do _don’t run_ unless your life depends on it.”

“Got it.” I said turning on my flashlight, it gave off a bright white light much to my relief, it was good to be able to see again. “You be careful too ya hear?”

I walked up the stairs to the first floor of the building, it looked so much creepier at night with pieces of the ceilings and walls hanging precariously over the broken floor boards. It’s amazing how the place hasn’t falling down yet, as I found the stairs leading to the second floor I definitely heard someone behind me whispering; I shone my flashlight  around the hallway and found nothing there.

“It’s just your imagination Luna, forget about it and get upstairs…” I mumbled to myself out-loud.  I continued working my way up to the infirmary on the third floor, by the time I got there Zak had pushed three of the old hospital beds together and was setting up an EMF pump; a device that outputs EMFs into the area so that spirits can use the energy to communicate. Whilst Aaron was setting up a camera facing the three beds and one facing down the hallway he noticed me coming from the stairwell and greeted me rather cheerily for where we were at the present moment;

“Oh hey Luna! How was the basement?” he asked grinning from ear to ear.

“It was…dark…and kinda creepy, we both heard a scream, and various other small things – nothing much really.” I reply “Nick’s gone to get a new tape for his camera and will be up in a minute or two.”

“Okay, well we’re nearly set up for our EVP session, Luna you’ll stand in the hallway and tell us if you hear or see anything, I’ll give you my camera, we’ll be lying in the hospital beds trying to communicate.” Zak informed me.

When Nick arrived from getting his new camera tape the EVP session began, I took up my position in the hallway behind where the beds were placed, I couldn’t see very far up the corridor but I knew that Zak had put out motion sensors all I had to do was keep an eye on the area surrounding the infirmary, I turned my flashlight off which was the signal that I was ready for them to start the EVP session.

Zak acknowledged the signal and started calling out to the spirits; “If there are any spirits here, my name is Zak, I have Nick and Aaron with me and the girl standing in the corridor behind us is Luna, feel free to let her know you’re here.”

_What?! I never agreed to that!_ My thoughts screamed at me. I leaned against one of the crumbling walls not really paying attention to what was going on, I pointed the camera facing down the corridor on the off chance that I’d find something.

“If you can hear my voice I want you to make a noise that we can all hear.” Zak demanded.

There was a scream from up the corridor, I spun around and pointed the camera at where I heard it, for some reason the camera froze. “For goodness sake not the Stanley Hotel incident again!” I hissed. I glanced up and saw a mist outside one of the rooms, I was torn between going after it and telling Zak.

“Zak…there’s a mist up the corridor…” I mumbled

“WHAT?” he cried leaping off the old bed and rushing to my side, he too saw the mist, he took the camera from my hands and tried to capture it on camera but the camera had stopped working. “Aaron the camera’s stopped working!”

“The energy has probably been sucked out of it by the mist.” Nick interrupted turning around in the bed to face us. Just then one of the motion sensors started bleeping like crazy telling us that something had triggered it, something had moved in front of it, something that wasn’t us. Zak took his flashlight out and went off down the corridor still holding the camera to try and find out what was going on, I decided to take his place on the old hospital bed between Nick and Aaron. We quickly feel into silence waiting and listening for Zak to come back, and it was quickly becoming a slightly awkward moment, being sat in the dark between two guys…

“We might as well keep the EVP session going…” Nick suggested, breaking the awkward silence.

“I concur.” I replied

“Right so…” Nick said trying to think of something to say. “If there is anyone with us who died of a disease or because of violence we mean no disrespect; we are here to communicate with anyone who wishes to speak to us.”

We sat in silence waiting for any response. “Zak has gone off looking for the white mist Luna saw, can you make your presence known to him?” Nick continued

“Make him scream like a little girl and come running back to us.” Aaron added

“That would be something to catch on camera.” I commented.

“Guys, stay focused.” Nick interrupted. Before he could say anything we all heard Zak yelling for us as he came running into the infirmary looking quite freaked out.

“Whoa dude are you okay?” Aaron asked trying not to burst out laughing.

“No, I was following the mist, or where I thought it was and I started hearing some weird ass shit…laughter, whispers, growls and voices. It was freaky as shit. You guys _need_ to come upstairs” Zak replied

“Where were you?” Nick asked

“Uh…fourth floor.”

_The fourth floor…shit…_ ”This doesn’t mean we have to go up there does it?” I mumbled looking at Nick, he looked back with understanding eyes.

“Yeah, come on. Aaron grab the EMF pump.” Zak ordered.

_He can’t be serious…_

Turns out Zak was being deadly serious even if he did get spooked by whatever was up there, we climbed the stairs and ended up in the same hallway I had been earlier today when I heard the voice. As we passed the doorway the voice came out of, a shiver ran down my spine and the memory of the incident.

“It was right here, I heard a creepy laugh, it was so fricking creepy…” Zak started telling us. “Then as I started trying to find out where it came from I heard footsteps heading straight for me, like someone was running.”

“Right…”  Nick replied looking up and down the corridor with the camera.

“After that I asked if there was someone here who wanted to speak to me…and I heard the _loudest_ growl I’ve ever heard, and I caught it on the camera audio!” Zak excitedly told us

“Really?! Let’s hear it then!” Aaron cried

Zak handed the camera to Aaron who immediately played the section of video in question over and over again; each time we heard the growl Zak had heard, and it didn’t sound friendly at all…it sounded like the growl I heard in the basement.

“Wow…that’s quite clear…creepily clear…” Nick said

“Especially considering where it was captured…” I added

Zak looked up at me in confusion. “What?”

I looked at Nick and he looked back, “You better tell him…” he mumbled

I sighed kicking a piece of drywall on the floor. “When Aaron left me up here earlier waiting for Nick, I kept hearing whispers and growls, I eventually heard what has had me freaked out since then…” I explained

“Which was?” Zak persisted

“S-Something said…’ _kill her’_ …and I just ran…it spooked me and then I ran into Nick…” I replied

“Ah…so that’s why you were reluctant to come up here a second time.” Zak concluded “Right so Nick and Aaron you go and sit in the basement, Luna you’ll be staying with me up here, we’re going to get you to face this fear of yours.”

_WHAT THE HECK IS HE THINKING?! HE CANNOT BE SERIOUS! “_ Uh…okay…..I guess that’s fine…” I mumbled.

“Right, see ya.” Nick said grinning before setting off down the stairs with Aaron following.

“Well that was kind of abrupt…” I commented before turning back to Zak. “So am I going to be bait then?” I asked him.

He smirked before replying; “You know…I hadn’t thought of that…which room did you hear the voice again?”


	17. Why did I agree to this?

**Chapter seventeen  
Why did I agree to this?**

So I’m sat in the room where I basically heard a death threat against me all because I had to open my big mouth and suggest that I should be human bait in order to conquer my new fear of this building. What a big mistake. Sitting in a dark room in which I can hardly see anything more than ten centimetres in front of my face with a potentially evil spirit and all of this was apparently my idea, whoops…

“So what am I doing again?” I asked Zak for the third time.

“You’re going to try and draw the spirit out, I don’t care how just try and do it.” He replied sitting in the doorway with the camera pointed at me.

“Fine, so…I’m just going to do an EVP session.” I stated sitting on the floor facing the doorway. I pressed record on the digital recorder and started asking questions;

“Right…uh…if you can hear my voice I want you to make your presence known to me and Zak, all we want is for you to communicate with us…”

My thoughts rattled on inside my head with endless scenarios of demonic attacks that could happen to me or to Zak, it was becoming hard to concentrate on the task at hand with all the paranoid thoughts. _It’s not too late to back out now…what if it follows you home?_ Was just one of the reoccurring thought patterns.

The room was silent, which made me nervous to a certain degree, but it also made me calmer as no activity could mean no spirits. Boy was I in for a surprise;

“If there is a spirit here, you better do something to impress her or she’s walking out of here single guys…” Zak interrupted “So you might wanna do something.”

“Are you suggesting I’d have a relationship with a spirit?!” I cried in disbelief.

“Hey, it’ll get a response, after all; these were teenage boys that were locked up with no female contact. They’re bound to get a kick out of having a girl here.” He reasoned “Think about it; if you were a girl in this place and you had no contact with teenage boys and suddenly a hot guy walks in, you’d wanna impress him right?”

 _What are you suggesting Mr Bagans?_ “Are you saying that I’m hot?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Uh…I never actually said anything like tha-” he replied

“But you were implying it…so…what did you mean?” I cut him off.

He shifted on the ground trying to figure out what to say and eventually replied; “Well…it’s pretty obvious that…uh…well why don’t we let the spirits answer that?”

 _I wasn’t asking what the **spirits** thought, I was asking what **you** thought… _“Fair enough.” I smirked “Alright boys, I need a boyfriend; I’ll take anyone who actually makes contact and impresses me.” I called out. I could see that this unsettled Zak slightly which made the entire situation funnier.

“That wasn’t quite what I meant…oh well…”

We sat in the dark waiting for any sign of a spirit being present, I felt something brush the back of my neck lightly, I turned around sharply and saw only the darkness of the room. I then heard a whisper from in front of me towards the doorway. I turned to the doorway and saw Zak looking puzzled at the camera screen.

“What’s the matter?” I asked ignoring the slight tingling sensation on my neck.

“The camera’s fogged up. I don’t know why, it isn’t foggy in here.”

The tingling sensation quickly started turning to a burning pain on my neck, it reminded me of the first investigation at the DuVade mansion; the three scratches on my arm have healed but there is a slight scar remaining and now my neck was burning like hell.

“Ow….my neck…” I mumbled

“What?” Zak asked looking up.

“It’s burning, just like my arm did when it was being scratched.” I replied rubbing it, the back of my neck was slightly damp for some reason… _sweat? No…blood._ I looked to Zak my heart in my throat, I was being attacked again and I couldn’t move; my legs would not move off the floor.

Zak saw the panic and fear in my eyes, he leaped off the floor and grabbed me by my available hand before leading me downstairs to where Nick and Aaron were.

“Aaron where’s the first aid kit?” Zak asked interrupting their EVP session.

“In the van with Billy….why?” Aaron replied puzzled.

I still had my hand covering my neck, it was getting covered in more, what I guessed to be blood, by the minute.  Although it wasn’t enough blood to be worried that I was about to die, it was just a little trickle covering my hand, my other hand was still being held tightly by Zak… _Oh my God I’m currently holding hands with Zak Bagans!....Stay calm and don’t do anything stupid…_

“She’s been attacked again and this time there’s blood.” Zak reported.

“What?!” Nick and Aaron replied

“Get her down to Billy.” Aaron said “We’ll go up to where she was attacked and-”

“NO. No-one is going up there, whatever is up there wants to do harm to her and possibly us.” Zak barked. “I’m halting the investigation for now, we’re ALL going to go down to Billy okay?”

Nick and Aaron nodded reluctantly and before I could get my thoughts organized again I was in the back of the van sat on a stool with my head bent over Nick’s lap whilst Zak and Aaron did something about the cuts on my neck.

 _At any other time I would’ve enjoyed this position probably…_ My head was resting on Nick’s chest while I was still getting to grips with what just happened.

Billy was sat looking at the feed from the night vision cameras placed throughout the building. Just before Nick and Aaron left, after Zak had practically picked me up and carried me to the van, they moved one of the cameras to the room I had been attacked in and also left a digital recorder rolling there. Billy was watching that camera feed and had his earphones plugged in so he could hear the audio as it was happening.

“Nick can you do us a favour?” Zak asked

“Yeah what?” Nick replied

“Can you stop her hair from falling in the way of the cuts? It’s hard to place a bandaid there if her hair is in the way.”

“Yeah okay.” Nick said, he reached past both sides of my face and gently clasped hold of the main strand of hair that was getting in the way, he brought it down past my shoulder. I was thankful that the majority of my hair had fallen over my face and obstructed it as my face had gone red with embarrassment…again.

“We’ve nearly got it patched up Luna.” Aaron told me. I didn’t reply, if anything I’d want them to think I had fallen asleep so they’d leave me alone. Which begged the question; what if I _did_ fall asleep on Nick?

“Is she asleep?” Zak asked after I didn’t reply.

Nick pulled back a part of the hair that was covering my eyes, he saw that I was indeed awake but also that I had tears in my eyes for reasons I couldn’t quite remember.

“Uh…I don’t know…” he said after we locked eyes for a few seconds. “It’s hard to tell…”

“Hmm..okay…well we’re just about done anyway…” Zak replied

Nick started to push me back upright by my shoulders, I grabbed hold of his arms, I didn’t want to move yet let alone go back in there. “Please…don’t…” I whispered to him, trying to hold back the tears in my eyes.

“Guys, I think I’ll stay with her for a while, she’s not exactly feeling 100% okay  about this, you both go back to investigating.” Nick told Zak and Aaron.

“Hmm…okay, Billy do you wanna come with us in Nick’s place?” Zak asked the coffee drone sat in front of the computer screen.

“Yeah okay, that means that you and Luna need to keep an eye on the camera feeds.” Billy instructed Nick.

“Yeah….sure we will.”

The three of them left the van to finish the investigation, I remained in the van with my head resting on Nick and still trying to hold back the tears, we sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity. The two-way radio started coming to life on the desk making us both snap out of our thoughts.

“It’s probably Zak…” Nick mumbled reaching for it. “Yeah?”

“Did you hear a weird scream come through the audio from the room on the fourth floor?” Zak asked

“Uh…I’ll check it again, how long ago was it?” Nick replied getting up and walking over to the computer leaving me staring at the floor.

He reviewed the camera footage and listened to the audio that Zak asked him to analyse, he obviously heard something interesting as a few seconds later he was radioing Zak. “There’s definitely something there dude, it doesn’t sound friendly. Be careful guys.”

“Thanks Nick, make sure Luna’s okay and check that the dressing on her cuts is secure.” Zak replied.

Nick turned back to face me, I had hardly moved and was still staring at the floor. He sat for a moment looking at me before breaking the silence; “Zak told me to check your cuts and that the bandage dressing is secure.”

“…okay.” I mumbled.

He walked behind me and started gently pulling the medical tape from around my neck, as his fingers brushed against my neck I felt my cheeks redden again and my pulse quicken, I swallowed as he slowly took off the padding off and the cold air attacked the open wounds of the cuts. I took a sharp intake of breath and clenched my fists as it started stinging.

“Are you okay?” he whispered in my ear.

I felt as if I had died and gone to heaven at this point, I certainly wasn’t expecting this night to go how it had so far.

“Um…yeah…it just hurts…” I replied.

“Okay, well they seem to be slowly healing so I’ll put some new padding on them.” He explained as he rummaged through the first aid kit.

“Nick…how many cuts are there?” I asked him

He found the medical tape and padding and started patching up the wounds. “There’s three deep ones and two minor cuts. Hold on this might hurt a little..” he replied ripping a part of tape away from the padding thus jerking my neck sharply.

“Ow...that stings like hell.." I whimpered

“Oh, sorry, I did warn you, anyway it’s done now.”

“Okay…” I mumbled  turning around to face him. “What time is it?”

“Like, one a.m or something, I don’t know, I suppose we ought to keep an eye on the camera feeds or else Zak will get really mad if we miss something.”

“Right, cool.” I said stealing the chair by the computer. “I’ll take visual, you take audio.”

He stood there smirking at me before shaking his head jokingly “Alright boss.” He took the earphones and sat on the floor by the desk listening to the audio feed whilst I watched Zak, Aaron and Billy still investigating in the room I was attacked in.

I was basically watching a silent movie as Nick was listening to the audio of the feed and I couldn’t hear what Zak was saying, but he was clearly annoyed at something. I jumped out of my seat when the two-way radio started buzzing with Zak’s voice again.

“Yes?!” I panted after causing Nick to nearly die from laughter as I nearly fell on the floor and in turn onto him.

“Are you watching the feed?” Zak’s urgent voice buzzed

“Yes, Nick’s listening to the audio, why?” I replied

“Just checking on you both, and why is Nick dying from laughter?”

“Because I nearly fell off my chair when the radio buzzed.” I explained trying not to burst into laughter myself.

“Ah okay well we’re going to head to Anna Corbin’s room for a while, then we’ll wrap the investigation up.” Zak told us.

“Okay Zak, stay safe.” Nick interjected before the line went dead.

“Do we have a feed from Anna Corbin’s room?” I asked

“Uh…no that was the camera which got moved onto the fourth floor.” Nick replied.

“So what do we do now?”

“Look at the other feeds? Or we could just sit here and do nothing…”

 _Complain about your neck hurting! Then he can massage it hehe…_ more random thoughts were beginning to interfere with my actions a little too much for my liking, they were also making it incredibly hard to actually think properly.

“Uh…I don’t know…” I said running my fingers across the bandage on my neck as I leaned back in the chair and stared at the roof of the van.

“Hmm I would’ve thought that Preston Castle would’ve been bit more active, maybe some of the spirits are at peace.” Nick speculated.

“Something’s been puzzling me…about that Zak look-a-like we found, he said that Preston Castle was the worst place ever…do you think…?” I mentioned

“Do I think what?”

“Do you think that the doppelganger was or is the spirit of a deceased juvenile?”

“Possibly, it wouldn’t be rare for a spirit to travel from one place to another, it’s just a matter of getting there, it obviously had an attachment with that old house.” Nick rambled on

“yeah…” I muttered still lost in thought about it, if it hadn’t been for the radio coming to life again I’m sure we would’ve sat there in silence for a few more minutes. But we were both jerked out of our thoughts sharply by Aaron’s distressed voice coming through the radio;

“Guys it’s happened again, Zak’s being channelled by Anna we think.”

“What?!” Both Nick and I replied

“He’s muttering stuff he muttered last time, only this time it’s more…uh..look just get in here and see for yourselves.” With that the line went dead again.

“Go…back in there?” I stuttered

“Yeah…I can’t leave you out here…come on,  it’ll be fine, once we’re in Anna’s room nothing will hurt you.” Nick tried to reason.

“Yeah right, with my luck I’ll get possessed by something wanting to harm Anna’s spirit.” I bluntly said.

“With that attitude of course you will.”

We fell into silence once again. I really didn’t want to go back in there but I guess I had no choice if Zak was being channelled by a spirit. “Alright let’s go and get our crazy leader.” I muttered as I stood up.

I clung to Nick’s arm in partial fear as well as anxiety and in need of comfort as we headed up to Anna’s room. My heart thudded against my chest whilst we got closer and closer to the room, Billy was stood outside unsure of what to do, as soon as I saw him I let go of Nick’s arm. _The last thing I need is everyone suspecting something._

I peered around the doorway I saw a flashlight on the floor shining a small beam of light to allow everyone to see, I also saw Zak sat on a chair not in his usual position and Aaron was recording with the camera although it was quite clear he didn’t want to be there. As I gingerly made my way into the room Zak’s head lifted to meet my gaze and said quite softly; “Ah child, don’t be afraid, you’re safe here.”

_Okay. Who are you and WHAT have you done with Zak Bagans?!_

“Zak? What is going on?” I asked

“Nothing’s going on, everything’s fine. Just don’t leave this room, bad things lurk in the hallways, bad things which gave you your injuries.” He replied softly again.

“Uh….i gathered…” I said unsure of what to make of this abnormal Zak.

“Dude, snap out of it.” Aaron ordered “You’re creeping us out.”

“Oh it’s nothing to be creeped out about, it’s a wonderful thing, it’s keeping us safe.” Zak retaliated

Nick placed a reassuring hand on Aaron’s shoulder; “Don’t worry dude, I’ll take it from here, just keep filming.”

Aaron nodded in reply and stepped back a few paces. “So Anna are you using Zak to communicate?” Nick asked

“Nick you’re scaring her.” Zak muttered.

“Let me try. She might respond to a female better.” I interrupted “Anna, can you please use Zak’s energy to talk to me? It would give my night a nice ending after being attacked earlier.” I gently asked the air around us.

“I feel really tired now….” Zak muttered again. “She feels better now Luna…just because you spoke to her nicely….”

“That’s okay Anna, it’s the way I’d want to be spoken to whether I was in this world or the spirit world.” I replied to the air. “Do you know who hurt you Anna?”

Zak appeared to fall asleep in the chair, and the room was quiet as were the hallways. We decided after ten minutes of no reaction to wake Zak up and end the investigation as it was getting lighter outside.

**~*~**

As I carried the last equipment case out to the van and loaded it my mind fast forwarded to tomorrow when I’d be watching myself get attacked by something I couldn’t see, I looked up at the tall red building that ruled the hillside and I couldn’t possibly have imagined what kind of mental state the juveniles were in when it was a working facility.

Zak quickly fell asleep again in the van and once again I was squashed between Nick and Aaron in the back, but these days were numbered as I would be returning home in less than five days, I will miss these times.


	18. Pool or Billiards?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter caused a debate in the original comments section about whether or not Americans call it pool or billiards which is rather amusing considering the title.   
> To this day I still don't know (feel free to let me know what you specifically call it)

**Chapter eighteen  
Pool or billiards?**

The hotel beds have never felt more welcoming than they did early this morning; we got in and gave a slight wave to the receptionist before crashing immediately in our rooms. Sleep is a wonderful thing but was rudely interrupted by the pain in my neck whenever I moved. I eventually got a few hours’ sleep before I couldn’t bear the pain anymore, I sat up and looked around the room, the equipment bags had been dumped just inside the main door and had fallen over during the night, there was light streaming in through the poorly drawn curtains; it was clearly the middle of the day outside. I looked over to the bed beside me where Nick was still sleeping and breathing lightly. _He’s quite cute when he’s sleeping…_

“Shut it brain, you’ve caused me enough problems.” I muttered to myself at that thought. My neck started hurting again and then I found out why; the padding had come off at some point and was lying beside me on the bed. I ran my fingers gently along the three cuts, they were massive cuts….i hoped they wouldn’t leave a scar, that would be interesting to explain to Kate; ‘oh yeah I got attacked by a spirit and now I have a load of scars on my neck’

I tried to muffle my laughter at the thought of Kate’s reaction but to no avail; Nick woke up a little cranky but saw the funny side of it when I explained. “Ah…I see, so how are you feeling today?” he asked

“My neck is really sore, but other than that I feel fine.” I replied picking at the bandage on the bed.

“Let me have a look at it and see if it needs another bandage on those cuts…” he said getting up. He climbed onto the bed behind me and brushed my hair out of the way, the feel of his warm breath on my neck made a shiver run down my spine.

“You okay?” Nick asked after I flinched

“Yep fine, don’t worry about it. So will I need another bandage on them?” I replied

“Hmm…possibly, I don’t know. It’s hard to judge how they’re going to heal and how long it will take.”

“Oh great…do you think they will leave a scar?”

“Maybe, they are quite deep so it’s a possibility that they will.”

“Well that makes six scars then.” I muttered.

“SIX?!” he asked shocked

“Yeah, I have one on my right arm from when I burned myself, two on my other arm from the DuVade mansion investigation and now three from Preston Castle.” I explained tracing the scars on my left arm. “It’s going to look like I’m self-harming at this rate.”

He took my left hand in his and turned my arm over so the scars were visible. Once again my heart rate increased dramatically at this kind of contact between me and him. “These ones will become less visible in the next few weeks, if they leave any trace at all; it’ll be minute.” He muttered in my ear.

“O-okay…” I stuttered.

I would’ve been content to sit there for the rest of the day like that with him but it had to come to an end, more abruptly than I had hoped though, Aaron walked in whilst we were still looking at the scars on my arm;

“Hey guys Zak told me to- whoa what’s going on here then?” he said as he looked up and saw us.

“Dude, she has a load of scars because of the spirits we’ve encountered.” Nick replied quickly. It was clear that he had thought of a reply to throw back at anyone who walked in.

“How many?” Aaron asked excitedly dropping the suspicious act.

“Five.” I replied.

“Aaron I need your opinion; do you think the ones on her neck will need another bandage?” Nick asked beckoning him over.

After looking at my neck for what seemed like forever Aaron finally replied; “I think she’ll be alright with no bandage, I mean the cuts need time to heal but they also need to be aired out, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah I know dude, so what are we doing today?” Nick answered

“Billy and Zak have said they will go through all the evidence and we can have the day off, so it’s up to us really.”

“Well…what is there to do?” Nick asked

“Good question…” Aaron muttered.

“Does this hotel have a recreational room?”

“I think so, if not then there are a few billiard tables in the lobby somewhere.”

“Cool I’d like to play pool then.” I piped up.

They both looked at me confused; “What’s pool?” Aaron asked.

“Oh right I’m in America and you call ‘pool’ pocket billiards. They’re basically the same game.” I explained.

“Oh pocket billiards, right, yeah we can play that. Let’s go down to the lobby and play ‘pool’ then.” Nick replied

The three of us walked downstairs to the lobby where the pool tables were, Aaron insisted on bringing his personal camera to shoot some ‘Aaron’s vlogs’ whilst we were down here playing. As a result of this the first two games were filmed regardless of the fact Aaron was actually playing both of them.

“Hey guys watch me win this game in two shots.” He grunted as he lined up another shot, aside from the fact he was losing by four points and Nick had basically won already.

But nonetheless he pocketed another ball and attempted to not hit the black number ‘8’ ball into the nearby pocket on the cue ball’s way past it, however things always go wrong when being filmed and the ‘8’ ball fell in, much to Nick’s delight and Aaron’s dismay.

“Ahaha, who won Aaron?” Nick cried when the ball settled in the pocket.

“Yeah yeah…whatever.” Aaron replied 

“You were a victim of your own boasting Aaron.” I commented.

“You think you can do better?”

“I don’t know, but it’ll be fun trying to.” I replied grinning at both of them and taking the pool cue from Aaron. “Come on Nick, _surely_ you can beat me right?” I taunted

“Challenge accepted, not that it’ll be much of a challenge.” He replied grinning

**~*~**

An hour and a half later Nick and I were still playing the same game, it seemed that it was going to be a close match, we had both pocketed all the available balls and it was just the case of who could pocket the ‘8’ ball and therefore win. Aaron was making things worse by filming and commentating on every single move either of us made;

“Oh this is getting tense now, both players could win here but will it be the undefeated Nick? Or the challenger Luna?” he said dramatically.

It was Nick’s turn, he lined up his shot, and he could easily win if he got it right, he hit the cue ball and it nearly knocked the ‘8’ ball into the pocket but it just sailed past and ended up on the other side of the table.

“Have fun.” He said to me smirking

“Yeah because you _so_ didn’t set that up did you?” I replied sarcastically.

“I didn’t I was aiming to win.”

“Yeah yeah, well if by some absurd luck I get this in- you owe me big time.” I said whilst absentmindedly hitting the cue ball, it bounced off the sides of the table before squarely hitting the ‘8’ ball into the pocket.

We all stared at it in disbelief. Aaron made his signature shocked face at his camera before bursting into taunting Nick. “Oh my God Nick you got beat by a _girl_ haha wait ‘til Zak hears about this!”

“Shut it Aaron.” Nick laughed before jokingly pushing him. “How did you get that to work?” he asked me

“I don’t know, I just hit the ball, I didn’t intend for it to go in.” I replied “But now you owe me.”

“Agh! Yeah, well I didn’t intend for you to win.” Nick quickly commented.

“He didn’t intend her to win what?” Came Zak’s voice from the doorway.

“Zak! Nick got beat by Luna in a game of pocket billiards.” Aaron reported

“Pool Aaron, we English call it pool.” I reminded him

“Whatever, you still beat Nick.”

“I see….and this is what you have been doing for the past…three hours?” Zak asked.

“Yeah, it was the best we could think of.” Nick replied

“Well we’ve just finished analysing the evidence, do you wanna come and see what we got?”

“Yeah come on then guys.” I said. We followed Zak back up to the room where him and Billy had been sat for the past three hours. Of course the desk was littered with coffee cups but it was also littered with various tapes and pieces of paper with notes on them.

“Right.” Zak said sitting down at the main screen. “We’ve caught a few things on EVP from around Preston Castle; most are from the fourth floor, but there are some from the basement as well.”

“The first on the fourth floor was caught shortly after you; Nick put the recorder down up there yesterday afternoon.” Billy continued “What do you guys think it sounds like?”

He played the section of audio in question, there was certainly a voice in there but I couldn’t quite hear it…

“Sounds like someone saying ‘get out’” Aaron replied.

“That’s what we both thought as well.” Billy said. “What about this one?”

“Sounds like a moan or something…” I mumbled unsure of what I had heard.

“Very good, we heard a small whimper on the end as well after playing it back several times.” Zak replied

“This one?” Billy asked playing a very weird sounding EVP, it was unlike anything I’ve heard until I heard two words I was all too familiar with;

“ _..I’ll **kill her….** ” _It said.

“W-when was this captured?” I asked quivering.

Billy looked to Zak for help, clearly he didn’t want to say when it occurred. After a few moments of Zak staring at the floor in thought he said; “That one was caught just before you and I decided to do an EVP session in there, I had placed a recorder on the floor between hearing the voices up there and running down to get you guys.”

My face seemed to drain of all heat and probably all colour. _That ghost was trying to kill me…_ my vision went blurred and the next thing I knew I was looking at the ceiling with Nick lightly tapping my face.

“Luna? Luna are you okay?” he asked

“Of course I’m not okay – a ghost tried to kill me!” I snapped returning to my normal self and sitting up.

“Hold on, you’re jumping the gun, we caught another EVP after you got attacked, and it seems to explain some of the activity we experienced last night.” Zak interrupted.

“ _..She wasn’t Anna…….why did you do that?....”_ a raspy voice came through the speakers.

“That is not only one of the best damn EVPs we’ve got, it’s also proof that there was more than one spirit there, and that one of them had good intentions.” Zak explained. “It also proves that Anna is still the target and that her murderer is still residing in Preston Castle.”

“Wow…” Aaron gasped after a few moments of silence. “So…what else did we get?”

“We got some EVPs in the basement when Nick and Luna were down there, nothing ground-breaking but still creepy.” Billy replied playing the EVP session Nick and I held in the basement, thankfully the recorder picked up on all the growls we heard and even the scream we both heard from somewhere else in the basement.

“Wow…it captured everything we heard..” Nick commented.

“There’s more…” Zak announced.

We heard Nick running off after the scream and then my slow footsteps as I followed the corridor back to the intersection, we then heard my quick breathing before a raspy voice came through; “ _…I’m going to get you…hehe…_ ” It was then that I remembered that I had been holding the recorder all that time, I don’t remember hearing the voice but I certainly remembered feeling the presence of something. “Why are you covering your face with your arms?”  Nick’s voice relayed through.

“So _that’s_ why I found you covering your face.” Nick concluded.

“Yeah…there was something down there….and that was my instinct to protect myself.” I replied

“So was that all we got in the basement?” Aaron asked

“Audio wise yes, video wise no.” Zak replied

He turned on the main screen and showed us the footage from Nick’s camera; he was on his own pursuing the scream down a corridor and had got to one of the storerooms branching off of it, he stood still for a while he asked if there was anyone in the room with him and there was no response.

Zak then paused the video; “I’m going to go frame by frame as what we caught is quick and you don’t notice it at first.” He explained before playing the video again. We all saw a small shadow figure starting to emerge from the corner of the room as each frame went by, but as soon as it ‘appeared’ it disappeared again with no trace whatsoever.

“Wow…and you saw that when you were watching it in normal speed?” I asked amazed.

“Yeah, in normal speed it’s just a flicker in the corner but years of evidence analysis has taught me well.” Zak replied smugly.

“So anyway….” Nick interrupted “Any other visual evidence?”

“Just one, from the moment Luna was attacked.” Billy replied

All eyes were glued to the screen as the tape was loaded, I was sat in the near empty room with Zak sat holding the camera in the doorway. We had just had our exchange about having a relationship with a ghost and had been sat in silence, the camera ‘fogged up’ according to Zak at the time, what _really_ happened was that we’d caught a partial apparition on camera seconds before I was attacked.

There seemed to be a mist around me and literally just before I got a burning pain on my neck the mist rose up and swirled around me, which obviously I didn’t see and neither did Zak at the time.

“So….was that the spirit harming me? Or was it the other one protecting me?” I asked quietly.

“Hard to tell….” Zak replied “I mean it’s not like we can go and ask the spirit or anything….”

“Can we?” I abruptly asked

The four of them looked at me like I was once again speaking French. Eventually one of them spoke; “Well we do have the key to the building still….for debunking reasons…” Aaron pointed out.

“And it’s not like we’d be doing any harm…” Nick continued.

“What do you say Zak?” they asked our cranky leader. He sat and stared into space for a while before turning to Billy; “What time do you need to leave?” he asked

“About four-ish, two hours from now…” he replied

“Come on then, we might as well.” Zak concluded “but pack everything up, we can go straight to Los Angeles from there.”

“Why are we heading to LA?” Aaron asked

“That’s where Luna’s flight home is taking off from, plus I thought we could use a few days off just ‘goofing’ off as you would call it.” He replied smirking.

“Oh okay!”

We loaded the van and headed back to Preston Castle for one last time, hopefully I’d be able to get in and out without being threatened or attacked by anything living or otherwise. _Although it would be nice to be fussed over by Nick again….._

“Shut up will you!” I snapped as I was sat in the van once more between Aaron and Nick.

“Who the hell are you talking to?” Zak asked from the front.

“Nevermind….” I whimpered, I sat in silence the rest of the way to Preston Castle.


	19. We can sing right?

**Chapter nineteen  
We can sing right?**

The afternoon sunlight streamed through the broken windows onto the shards of glass littering the floor, we had arrived half an hour ago and were making our way up to the room I had been attacked. I wanted to contact the spirit who had stuck up for me to thank them; I could’ve lost my head apparently if the malevolent spirit hadn’t been stopped.

“So…why are we here again?” Aaron asked

“Because I want to see if the kinder spirit is here and if so thank them for saving my life.” I explained for the fourth time

“And what if the evil spirit is the only one here?” he continued

“Well that’s a chance I’m willing to take.” I replied “For the record, we are filming this aren’t we?”

“If it’s alright with you, I mean if you do make contact then it’ll be great evidence.” Zak answered

“Oh it’s fine with me.” I said as we started walking down the fourth floor corridor, with each step closer to the infamous room I felt the memories of yesterday coming back to me.  Every sound and every feeling I experienced last night replayed in my mind ending with the EVP we caught; “ _...She wasn’t Anna….why did you do that?...”_

As we stopped outside the door a gentle breeze rushed past us, I passed through the doorway and couldn’t help but notice that the atmosphere beyond the door felt much different to outside in the corridor. Nick followed me into the room whilst Zak filmed from the doorway and Billy and Aaron stood around in the corridor.

The feeling in the room was so different from last night I had to double check we were in the same room I had been attacked in, it felt strangely calm and peaceful rather than tense and dark like last night. I walked around the room and sat exactly where I was when I got attacked and started asking if a spirit was present; “Is the spirit who protected me last night here today?”

Nick sat on the floor against one of the walls with his arms folded across his chest, he had told me earlier as we entered the building that he thought it was a bad idea to come back here less than a day after being attacked but I was set on contacting that spirit even if I risked getting hurt further to do so.

“If you are; I’d like to thank you, we heard your voice on our recording device today. We heard you scolding the spirit who harmed me.” I went on. “So…thank-you very much.” I got up to leave when I felt a hand grasp my wrist, I immediately looked to Nick but he was still sat on the floor on the other side of the room, Zak was still stood in the doorway and neither Billy or Aaron had moved from the corridor. Someone was holding my wrist…and I couldn’t see them. _Don’t you dare freak out at a time like this, you practically asked for this so now you deal with the consequences._ My thoughts screamed at me as my hands started sweating.

“Are you holding my wrist right now?” I asked, “If so I can feel you.” Both Zak and Nick’s heads snapped up at my question and they both looked to my wrist.  It was starting to tingle, but not in the same manner as if I was being attacked; it was in a comforting way like a family member or friend would hold it.

“Aaron have you got the thermal camera handy?” Zak hissed

“No…why what’s happening?” Aaron hissed back

“She’s making contact with…someone…”

I remained standing almost completely still whilst my wrist was still being held, I started seeing a misty outline of a figure, it was very faint but I could just make out a human figure about the same height as me standing beside me but no definite details.

“Holy cow….” Zak muttered under his breath, obviously he had seen something on the camera screen similar to what I was seeing.

“Don’t worry, we mean no harm.” I said to the figure. “We’re just looking for answers to one of life’s most important questions, and you’ve helped us a little bit by speaking into our recorder last night.”

The figure seemed to disappear but I still felt it’s presence around me, I wanted to stay here all day and talk to them but I knew that was out of the question. I decided to break off the session before any other spirits tried to get involved; “Well it’s been nice seeing you, thank-you again for protecting me.” I said looking around the room for the figure again, with no other activity happening we walked out of the building.

We were just about to get in the van and leave when Zak stopped us; “Hold on, I think we should have a photo to commemorate the occasion; Preston Castle, the night that changed us all.”

“We’ve hardly ever taken a group photo before, why start now?” Aaron asked.

“Well…this is a momentous occasion, and it’s Luna’s last investigation with us. I just thought I’d be nice an’ all.”

“I don’t think it’s a bad idea.” Nick commented.

“Me neither, but I got to get to Sacramento soon or my friend will kill me.” Billy said

“Okay, I got the tripod and the camera, everyone get ready.” Zak announced.

“Did I ever mention that I’m camera shy?” I babbled as Billy playfully shoved me at Nick.

“Nope and it’s too late to back out now.” Aaron replied.

Zak pressed the capture button on the camera and raced behind me, Nick and Billy to join Aaron, he got there just as the photo was taken. “Right now that that’s done, we ought to get Billy off to Sacramento and then it’s on to Los Angeles for us.” Zak declared getting into the driver’s seat.

**~*~**

The sun was setting as we drove into the centre of Sacramento, we dropped Billy off near the town hall. As he was about to get out of the van he hi-fived the guys and turned and hugged me; “Don’t let Zak drive when he’s cranky Luna.” He said

“Oh don’t worry I won’t, thanks for everything Billy.” I replied. He got out and waved us off as we got on the highway heading for Los Angeles.

“So what did you thank Billy for doing?” Zak asked a little perplexed.

“Oh whilst Nick, him and I were in that house dealing with that spirit; which I’m still convinced was a doppelganger, he helped in save my life, that and he’s generally a fun guy in my opinion.” I replied staring out of the window at the passing scenery.

“Okay, fair enough.” Zak replied

“Luna do you have that book you found in that house still?” Nick asked.

“Yeah it’s in my case, why?”

“Just wondering if in all the commotion you actually picked it up that’s all.”

“Book?” Aaron asked from the front

“Yeah I found a book on paranormal theories in the house, and I picked it up…” I replied

“Speaking of which; Zak, why _did_ you stop the van that night and go off on a wonder in the middle of nowhere?” Nick asked

Zak didn’t reply, outside the van the sun had fully set and the highway was dimly lit by the van’s headlights, we were the only vehicle on the road which made the silence after Nick’s question more noticeable and unbearable. Nick and I exchanged looks in the back seat as the silence continued.

“Uh…well…” Zak started after what seemed like an eternity of silence. “The thing is, where we were at the time…it…look I’ll explain when we get to the hotel. It won’t be long now.”

“Okay, so how much longer?” I asked

“About two and a half hours.”

“Yay…two and a half hours of being stuck in a van…” I muttered.

“Lighten up, we can have fun whilst we’re travelling.” Aaron replied to my muttering.

“And we have fun how?” I snapped

“Well…let’s turn the radio on…” Nick suggested trying to keep the peace between us.

The radio was turned on and the only station that the van would tune into had ‘Girls just wanna have fun’ playing.  Nick and Aaron immediately burst into song and Zak had to pull over as he was laughing so much. I was close to tears by the time they finished, I so wished I had caught that on camera; that would’ve been gold.

“So, having fun yet?”  Nick asked me whilst the radio DJ rambled on in the background

“Yes, oh my days that was so funny.” I cried.

“Ah, well I ought to keep driving or we’ll never get to Los Angeles. Just don’t go overboard guys.” Zak said turning back onto the highway.

“Oh we won’t.” Aaron replied smirking, “It depends what song comes on next.”

As Zak started driving again ‘Close to you’ came on and both Aaron and Nick did a poor cover consisting of more yelling than ‘singing’ and plenty of laughter. If I hadn’t had been with them for the entire day I would’ve sworn they were drunk. The radio station went for an advert break leaving all three of us in hysterics and Zak trying not to lose concentration.

“Hey Aaron we should record some ‘Aaron’s vlogs’” I said between fits of laughter.

“Yeah okay.” He replied getting his camera out of a rucksack. “Hey guys, Aaron’s vlog here, we’re currently on our way to LA and well…the six hour drive has got the better of us, well me, Nick and Luna anyway, Zak’s trying to ignore us and get us to LA in one piece.” He proclaimed to the camera “Good on ya Zak, we thank you for it.”

“So we’ve been singing for like the past ten minutes and we had to pull over because Zak was laughing so much.” Nick said “We’re just waiting for the next song to come on and then we’ll serenade Zak’s driving again.”

“Please don’t serenade my driving guys, sing if you must but don’t sing about my driving.” He replied

“Haha chill out dude just hope that a song that we can all sing comes on.”

“What like the last one which you both slaughtered?” I commented.

“Ahh we hadn’t heard that one for a while.” Aaron replied in his defence

“That doesn’t give you the right to slaughter a song that had some interesting memories attached to it.”

“Memories eh?” Zak interrupted; I suppose he’d rather talk about something he’s not really interested in than have Aaron and Nick singing.

“Yeah when I went to France with my school the activity workers started singing ‘close to you’ and made a parody out of it, we also had a ‘magic’ roundabout somewhere which we went around 17 times…” I told them

“Sounds crazy…” Nick replied

“There was also a woman there who told us all to call her ‘moo’ because she liked cows…it was quite a weird trip.” I went on. “It was one of the better times with my school though.”

“Cool, just another hour guys ‘til we’re in LA.” Zak told us.

“Yay another hour of slaughtering decent songs.” I replied

“You bet!” Aaron said.

**~*~**

As we headed down the highway just outside of LA attempting to sing along to Nickelback’s ‘Rockstar’ the city seemed to leap up on us with its bright lights and busy streets, Zak got more and more agitated as the traffic came to a standstill, yet Nick, Aaron and I were still singing along (very badly) not giving a care in the world.

“Will you guys ever shut up?” Zak asked jokingly

“No! We like singing dude, it’s kept us sane for the past two hours.” Aaron replied

“But it’s driven me _insane_ for the past two hours.” Zak muttered

We eventually got to the hotel and Zak did something that surprised all of us; he walked up to the reception and asked her if there was a room with four single beds available. She looked a little confused at first but handed him a key after a few moments.

“Come one guys, we’re all sharing one room for our final night.” He said leading us along the corridor.

“Why? I mean I’m not against it but why?” Nick asked as the door was unlocked and we got inside.

“Because it’s Luna’s last night in America, and I thought we could all just chill in our own room rather than heading to the bar or something.” Zak explained

“Oh yay!” I responded surprised that it was all for my benefit.

We sat on each of our own beds which we positioned with two against one wall and two against the other and just started talking. After a while Aaron persuaded Zak to turn on the radio so we could have another karaoke session, regardless of what the people in the neighbouring room thought, throughout it all Aaron managed to record something like half an hour’s vlog footage, whether it all ended up on YouTube would be a surprise for me when I got home.

“What time is it?” I asked after we finished ruining another song for our neighbours.

“About eleven-ish….maybe half eleven? I don’t know.” Nick replied

“Does anyone know what time my flight leaves?”

“Three in the afternoon, so you need to be checked in my midday.” Zak answered in a matter-of-fact manner.

“So shouldn’t we be thinking about getting some sleep? Or are we literally going to get up at like half ten and leave for the airport?” I suggested

“Yeah, besides; we have a surprise for you before you leave.” Nick said

“Oh great….what have you guys done _now_?” I replied

“Wait and see.” Zak said sinisterly before pulling the covers of his bed over him.

“Now I’m really suspicious….” I muttered. I looked to Aaron for any clue but he was already getting comfortable in his bed so I was left staring at Nick for a while.

“Forget it, I’m not saying anything about it.” He said sticking his tongue out at me and settling down in his bed.

I led back in my own bed and listened to each of them drifting into sleep, their light breathing (in Aaron’s case – snoring) and every now and then Zak would mutter something inaudible. I stared at the ceiling thinking about everything that had happened to me in the past two weeks, what a crazy birthday this was…and there was still one more day to come and go – who knows what’ll happen; especially with this surprise they have in store for me…


	20. Surprise? What surprise?

**Chapter twenty  
Surprise? What surprise?**

I woke up with the normal confusion at where I was which was quickly solved when I heard Aaron still snoring across the room from me, I looked over at each of Zak and Nick’s beds and for some reason they weren’t there. _Oh dear God where are they and what are they doing?_ I thought. I sat up and ran my fingers through my tangled hair and started making a mental checklist of all my things and whether I had packed them all yet, halfway through my checklist I heard Aaron awaken from his slumber with a grunt;

“...Where’s Zak and Nick?” he mumbled still half-asleep.

“I don’t know...they’re probably scheming somewhere...” I replied turning to face him. “Any idea what the ‘surprise’ is?” I asked

“Yes...but I can’t tell you.”  He slowly answered.

“Oh come on! Just a little hint?” I pleaded

“No, Zak would kill me if I gave you any kind of hint. All I can say is; be ready for anything, literally _anything_.”

I nodded before bursting out laughing, what could they possibly be doing that would mean I’d have to be ready for anything? Various scenarios started forming in my mind and I hardly noticed Aaron sneaking out of the room until the door slammed shut.

“Agh damn it!” I snapped, after realizing he had got away without me questioning him further. I guessed now I would have to wait until someone came and ‘collected’ me for the surprise they had in store, and with no-one giving me any kind of hint it looked like it was going to be a long wait until all was revealed.

However I couldn’t have been more wrong, as less than five minutes after Aaron left; he came back and gave me a note before walking out again without saying a word. I hesitated before reading the piece of paper;

‘ _Wear something you don’t mind getting wet in; have a change of clothes handy as well then wait for us to come and get you – Zak_ ’

What in the world are they up to? Don’t mind getting wet…where the heck could we be going in the middle of January that involves water? I thought as I read it over and over again and not getting any new information from doing so, I decided to get dressed into something that – as advised – I didn’t mind getting wet in; a pair of combat trousers and a tank top, I moved one set of clothes from my suitcase into a sports bag where I had been keeping all the necessities one would need on a lockdown. The waiting game then began again after I was ready and there was no sign of any of the guys.

“Surely it couldn’t take this long to get whatever they’re doing ready….I’m getting more and more suspicious by the minute…” I said to myself.

“Maybe you should stop speaking to yourself…or is there a spirit in this hotel too?” a voice came from behind me. I spun around in surprise and saw Nick fighting back the urge to laugh at me.

“DON’T DO THAT TO ME!” I yelled trying to hold back a laughing fit of my own. “You scared the living crap out of me…sheesh…” I said calming down.

“Sorry Luna, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up.” He replied sniggering. “You ready?”

“Yeah, should I even ask where we’re going or would that be a waste of my breath?” I asked getting up and slinging my bag over my shoulder.

“No you shouldn’t, as I’m forbidden to tell you on punishment of death from our leader; the o’ mighty Zackary.” He said chocking back laughter at the last part, in the end we both started walking down the stairs in hysterics and getting a weird look from both Zak and Aaron.

“Uh…is there something funny about the way we’re dressed?” Zak asked as I stopped laughing long enough to breathe. It was then I realised that all three of them were dressed as if they were going surfing; shorts and tank tops. (Which revealed Zak’s tattoos nicely – but also gave me a déjà vu moment.)

“Um…no, you all look dashing.” I replied a little crazily.

“You don’t look too bad yourself.” Nick commented.

“Thanks, no will someone please tell me what’s going on? How about you o’ mighty leader Zackary?” I replied looking at Nick as the last question tumbled out of my mouth uncontrollably.

“What?” Zak had never looked so puzzled in the past two weeks that I had known him; it was quite funny to say the least; Nick and I started laughing again.

“Uh…well let’s get started by getting into the van.” Zak said unsure of how to react to being called ‘mighty Zackary.’

We all got in and Zak drove us through the centre of LA, which was suicidal in Aaron’s opinion as traffic was terrible and he made a big deal of lecturing Zak once we were sat in a massive queue for the road out of town, whilst me and Nick couldn’t stop laughing at the whole ‘Zackary’ joke. (Of which Zak was still none the wiser.)

Eventually we got to a parking lot on the edge of the San Marina beach; it was quiet with only a few dog walkers here and there and the odd surfer out on the open waves. The guys got out of the van and headed out onto the sand with me following full of curiosity.

“Well here we are...the surprise; a few hours at the beach – now who votes we throw Luna into the ocean?” Zak proclaimed.

_What?! Throw me into the ocean?! So that’s why I had to be dressed in something that wouldn’t get ruined if it got wet._

“Well she’s not arguing so why not?” Aaron said picking my feet out from underneath me but before I hit the soft sand Zak grabbed my arms and they started swinging me back and forth for a while whilst they walked out so they were up to their knees in water before finally throwing me further out into the ocean, shortly afterwards they all ran and jumped in too. We spent a while splashing and dunking each other in the reasonably warm water for the time of year, someone came up with the idea of having a dunking contest; where a person sits on the shoulders of another and then tries to push their opponent and their partner under the waves.

By the time each of us had gone under the surface several times we were soaked to the skin and hungry. “So…who wants food?” Zak asked as we trudged back to the van so find our change of clothes.

“I do, as the airline food will be crap as usual.” I said picking up my bag and turning towards the restroom.

“Okay, go and get changed and we’ll all meet up and grab some food….then I think we should get to the airport…” he replied his voice trailing off at the last part.

Five minutes later we were heading back into town on the search of food; we found a Subway shop and sent Aaron on the mission to get us some sandwiches whilst we sat in the van. “So what time does my flight leave again?” I asked

“It leaves at three, but check-in is half an hour from now so really Aaron needs to hurry up, we can hang-out in the check-in lounge but at some point you’ll have to clear security and actually get through to the waiting terminal….so we have about three hours before you have to be through into the waiting terminal.” Zak replied

“Okay…” I said, an awkward silence soon settled which was soon lifted when Aaron presented us with a sandwich each. “Yay food!” I commented happily as I took a bite.

“Right let’s get you to the airport then…” Zak solemnly stated as he started driving down the road.

**~*~**

“Right so you’re checked in, I advise you clear security in the next two hours in time for your flight to leave at three.” The receptionist said as she labelled my suitcase and it took off  down the conveyer belt. “Have a nice flight.”

“Thanks.” I replied and then walked over to a table where the three guys sat drinking coffee.

“All checked in?” Nick asked

“Yep, now I have two hours to clear through security.” I replied dragging a stool up to the table.

“Well you don’t _have_ to go now, you could go in an hour and a half.” Zak said

“It depends…is there anything to do here?” I replied to Zak.

“What’s wrong with just sitting and having a chat?”

“Nothing, nothing at all I was just wondering if there was anything you were planning to do.” I said defensively

“Okay…calm down guys….” Aaron murmured

“Yeah let’s just sit here and discuss what’s happening next then; where’s the next location Zak?” Nick said changing the subject quickly.

“I’m thinking of going back to Florida, or maybe doing some revisits around Nevada.”  He replied

“Do you ever want to visit England again?” I asked

“Yeah totally, we just need a decent amount of time as there are a lot of places I’d like to investigate.”

“You know of any good places?” Aaron asked me.

“Uh….well like you have lots of forts still in good condition, we have a lot of castles open to the public, and some privately owned; we also have a lot of old and historic buildings around still.” I answered counting off on my fingers as I went on. “You might be able to persuade the Navy to let you on some of the permanently docked ships in some of the harbours.”

“Sounds wicked.” Zak commented brightening up considerably. “We’ll have to see if we can get to England soon then.”

“The other parts of the UK have haunted locations as well, Wales, Scotland and Ireland – both north and the rest of it, which isn’t in the UK, have plenty of historical areas.”

“Even better.” Nick chimed in.

“So you’ll consider it?” I asked

“Yeah, I’d love to go back to Edinburgh!” Aaron enthusiastically replied

“Same here!” Zak added.

We spent an hour talking about various buildings in the UK which are considered to be haunted and the local legends around them, as well as how long it would take to actually investigate them all. “So how long would it take? A few weeks? A month?” I asked

“Uh…I’d guess about a month yeah, taking into account any delays due to travelling and any…unexpected occurrences.” Zak replied looking directly at the now hardly visible scars on my arm.

“Yes, well…I hope you guys have fun.” I said remembering that I wasn’t going with them.

An awkward silence settled after I said that, it began to become slightly uncomfortable and we all kind of sighed with relief when the announcer called for the passengers of my flight to clear through security. We got up and started walking towards the security gate, we stopped short of the queue and I turned to them.

“Well guys, it’s been a blast, certainly the best birthday ever.” I said fighting back tears

“Yeah it has been one hell of an experience!” Aaron replied picking me up in a bear hug laughing.

“Although you’ve been a pain in the ass sometimes, it’s been fun, don’t get yourself into anymore situations with demons!” Zak commented as he hugged me.

“Ahh I won’t.” I laughed. Nick didn’t say anything, he just hugged me. As he hugged me I whispered in his ear; “ _Thanks for everything Nick._ ” That’s when the tears started falling.

“Aww, cheer up! You’re putting a damper on this occasion!” Nick laughed grinning.

“Here, take this – open it once you’re on the plane.” Zak said presenting me with an envelope.

“Oh..Okay.” I replied surprised.

“Now get going, or you’ll miss your plane – again.” Aaron reminded me.

“Hey – it was the snow’s fault for making me stay another week, but I don’t regret it at all.” I answered walking down the corridor, I turned and waved to them just before I went through the door leading to the security check-point.

I drifted through the checkpoint not really paying full attention, my mind was replaying the entire fortnight I had spent with them – every little memory until I got onto the plane. I sat in my assigned seat next to a window and opened the letter whilst waiting for take-off.

**_‘Luna,_ **

**_I think we can all agree that the past two weeks have been some of the best times we’ve had whilst investigating, but also when we haven’t been hunting down spirits and have just been hanging out together._ **

**_You’ve been a welcome addition to the crew and hopefully we’ll get together and hunt down some spirits. We hope you continue communicating with spirits back in England – and you never know; we might drop in someday...._ **

**_Have a safe flight,_ **

**_Zak, Nick, Aaron & Billy.’_ **

As I read the letter tears started streaming down my face again, this had been the best time of my life by far and now it had ended almost. I folded up the letter again and as I was picking up the envelope another piece of paper fell out; it had all of their numbers and the office e-mail address on it, I couldn’t help but smile at the idea of calling them once back in England.

The plane took off, and as it flew over Los Angeles I looked down at the beach below and laughed to myself, those guys certainly knew how to pull off a surprise...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the first one finished, I hope you enjoyed it :)
> 
> The sequel is at least twice the length, oh what fun I'm going to have uploading that.


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